CCCi< CC< 






c c ccc. c c c: c c< - c <c cfe^ J > r ^^^C « 



cc^ c 
e«% C 

$& 

«LC C 
«£c c 



ceo cc<::< 
err etc < 



;SS^<£ r cc cfecc 5: 



cCCCjCS&CC <S 
ccc<©<ccc <3 



actcccc c: c tccccric^Sf 2p^ -S 



C «jt;'«cC"C"' \Gf ccccc. 

C. <H ccCX C<33 (3C<'0 

C «£.*CC C c CC< OC <C o 

C CacdCCTc ,CCCCC C <a 



accc c ■' « CC c^c cc «^§^S§ 



. C 1GKCOC c 
CCCc C CCCCCC^ccjC 

' < C C&<CC CGcfCC 

c c cc.ee c c CiCcce 
r <^c:c <r«cc ce 
r Cvcc c <;cr<Lo or 
C c c d cex c c<c ccf 
Ccc c erect v-oerrc 
c c c<^c<CCcc^rcr< 
;UC( c <£>;ccc cccorcc 
S cc c < c cc ( cc < c cc cc 
c ec c: cecc.cccc- ex 
cc c ;:m cc < 

*<cec <r.«5crr 



A CCi ( 

<r cc cc 

<& ri 

c cc ( 
«. <:c ( 

c r T 



cjscc ccj c 

&<CC C C« < 
pjac C CC( ; < 

«gp< C CC« < 
_^3£cr/C CCC < 

S3ccc"C< ( 

c^tic cc c e ^ 
cccccr c_c f 

^^ccc cc 

ccc^rr cc: c 



^^:^C crc 
c: <^" 
z-xrc , 
_^ccc d< 
CQC4Ccc<: c 
■ coc:c:;'<cjc 

I cc-e eje 
^ccc - 
«CCT^ 

<I:CC^: < 

.L-xcjcr 



- ,r * ' c-- 

W'-ffSS- c# cc cc , 
X€ C i¥&£ ccc a 

c C C.CCCX cc c # 

r c<rcc cr c^< 
Cr cccxi a c ^Cc 

CC CTcettCC C*?'<r 



%f^€33£mci CC 
^^ ccccc cc 

5 c <> Cclv<->c cc 
1^ £<^<C S C 



... - . - . .. ■• - — . - 

UIBRARY OF CONGRESS! 

4 

[SMITHSONIAN DEPOSIT.] 



<3 



«r< 



CC Cff cr CC C C«C <TC Cr ^£ 






CA I 



r cc<sc*o c >c c cr^ ccccc: 
cc<r^< ca cc cccj 

CC«c^ccc' C€T. ^C<c 



Cc 



c cc c<: c ^."CjCC l ;>> 



■fea cc ccccc <^c ( Vc 



cr < <:«<r"c ^y 



CC'i,r( #C> ; C'< c 
CC cc <jT 

C£X?rCo><rc r 






ccC 

<c< 

ccc 

' f CC 
f ^CC' 

c< 

<c c 

;cc 
ccc 



S3 

c 

l_c 
c 

C\. 



c>l < r c<e 

CC c ^cjCC 






C< c 

X< cj 

;cc'C« 

" C< C<' 

Cr C< 

c < . 



?C< 
CC<- 






( «cW 



Kcc 



Z €MC.<Kfo 

re; ccs^:CCi;.<fe^ 
<rcr «s«c^;<c<e:~ ; <&« 
c_c «xc«c ~ 
icL«cL cd^CCT <sc£ 

tc *3CCCC CCc . 

P cr <rccc_ ^c 
Lc cccc ecu 
~CC <^'CCd cces 
x<^ ^ecccr exc 

r<c:< 

r:<CL «D3C CX^: 
ITCL ^SejCX <s 
r~lX" o^ce CCC 
C< .. <&a ". c e ^ 

i£g3i3BC3GgZm 
ZL<^^<^<<Z<Si 

Xc: -l«t?cc ee cr, 
d'e <ce<c <e 

"t^C «rac"<3tL.- 

ZXc<e «sc: - 





















^- «" cc «*x esc <r<ii <c<i < 

j^ c c:<; «Sf-ecT cjet* coc^? 

- ** <c ocx <ce cr«x cr 

^ c «s«rc: c:<£ <? < ' 

^«&- C «CX^f ^e" C*X «C<^ "^ 
>^^^C3tSc<r C3CS ,:C<Cj 



<3<c«^s: 



C«:-CC 



4^-^^S^pJcscc: <rc^cc 



-A" IK 



MmS^mmzm 






< '^:< c <r< €£Z«<J 






<d c 






^£D CCCC'r 



^^^^^#sst«^ 



5 ,\e ^: 

^ cixe < 



^^^-^CCCC < 









«ss: ^ 






&C<i.<:<£:<cr<s^ ■ 

"" .<c<<o;-.:v 
«C C ^CZ^<§<C .-"crc 



a:crcc(z;^ 
^:ccc<r'« 

OCT c COC^jCC'C ^_;^ 
^ c <^ CCc c"'< cc •i^r< 

^C C :^.ccxc:«:Cv^:c 

I c ^ccc<:ceccxiX' 
CT C'CCCcC^. CCCT.Cc 
Z C <WC<<:<mz£&Ci:<£ 
-^ c. ^:x.<i;c<; -ccie.ee 

Sc; .CC".<4^ 
2 ^<3C"CL<.? 
^C' .-cc d^ 






^c,e<c«X^ 
oc? :erc»r"<55 

ccveioc^cce.j 

<<« X< 



.<c:<c&Cl>Cl:C^ 



CiC4 






v^ps»»; <^<^'<X C<r , «^ 

c<-c<: «o - cc cc0?&C^ 



THOUGHTS 



OJ? 



POPULAR AND LIBERAL EDUCATION, 



WITH SOME DEFENCE OS 



THE ENGLISH AND SAXON LANGUAGES ; 



IN THE FORM OF AN ADDRESS TO THE PHILOMATHEAX 
SOCIETY OF INDIANA COLLEGE. 



DELIVERED SEPTEMBER 2STH, 1836. 



BY CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D. 



P.1INTED BY REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY. V^'.. - 



/ 



LEXINGTON, KY: 

INTELLIGENCER PRINT. 

1836. 



1 * 



THOUGHTS 



ON 



POPULAR A1¥I> LIBERAL EDUCATION, 

&C. &C. &C. 

Gentlemen: — It has been your pleasure to honour me with 
an invitation, very flatteringly communicated, to participate in 
the ministry of this Festival of Letters. Pursuant to that ac- 
tion on your part, I now rise, on mine, with such resources as 
I can bring to the task, to redeem the pledge, which my accept- 
ance of the proffered invitation implied. In the discharge of 
this duty, I feel it incumbent on me, to conform, as far as prac- 
ticable, to the spirit of the occasion which has called us to- 
gether. That spirit, as just intimated, is literary and scientific; 
and as such I shall regard it. 

Education has been the principal business of your lives, and 
of the lives of those associated with you in the celebration of 
your anniversary; education has called us into this sanctua- 
ry of the Muses; the patrons of education have assembled 
at the summons; and every thing around us is redolent of ed- 
ucation. It seems proper therefore that it should constitute 
the theme of the discourse I am to deliver. Nor, in the en- 
tire circle of earthly concerns, vast and multifarious as they 
are, can another to equal it in importance be selected. In the 
grandeur and sacredness of its object, the mightiness of its 
power, and the magnitude of its effects, it is unrivalled and 
alone. 

Extravagant as this representation may appear, to those 
who have not duly considered the subject, and unwelcome as 
it may possibly be to the self-esteem of others, who are en- 
gaged in pursuits which they think outrank education — not- 



withstanding these and nil other considerations that may array 
themselves against it, the statement submitted to you is true to 
the letter. And I am the more resolved to defend its truth, 
on account of the opposition in sentiment it so uniformly and 
illiberally encounters. Neither is education itself, nor the able 
and accomplished conductors of it in our country, held in that 
high esteem, nor elevated, in public opinion, to that distin- 
guished rank, to which they are entitled. There are Jack 
Cades in America, as well as in Europe, and at the present, no 
less than in former times; who, to propitiate the untaught mul- 
titude towards themselves, and prejudice them against the more 
cultivated and enlightened, exult in their own uneducated con- 
dition, decry the fruits of education in others, and endeavour to 
make a glory of their shame, by converting their illiteracy into 
a stepping-stone to power. Nor is this all. The statesman 
and the lawyer, the physician, the divine, and even the mer- 
chant and the planter consider themselves and their callings 
superior to the teacher and his calling — though they are noth- 
ing in fact but the creatures of education. In the practical 
pursuit of his profession, the teacher moulds and fashions them, 
as the sculptor does his marble, or the potter his clay. Nor 
have they a shadow of ground for preferring their vocations 
to his, but because they are less laborious, r.nd more lucrative. 
That they are either more honourable in their nature, more 
weighty and responsible in the duties they impose, or more 
useful in their effects, they will not contend. That I may 
not, however, commence my discourse with a position deem- 
ed doubtful by any one, it is requisite that I adduce a lew 
facts in its defence. It will be borne in mind, that, in the re- 
marks I have already made, as well as in those I am about to 
make, I allude to education in the full and entire signification 
of the term. Enlightened and cultivated mind, and acquired 
dexterity of every description, are essentially its products. 

The paramount "grandeur of the object' 1 of education just 
referred to is incontestible; because it is nothing less, than to 
rescue the human family from the ignorance and ferocity, de- 
gradation and profligacy of brutish savagism, and exalt them to 



civilization, science and virtue. And this, neither legislators 
nor lawyers, physicians nor divines, are able in their special 
vocations to effect. The "mightiness of the power" of educa- 
tion is evinced by its achievement in part of this arduous en- 
terprise. And the "magnitude of its effects" is sufficiently 
demonstrated, by all that is vast, magnificent, and glorious, in 
the works of civilized and cultivated man, which are exclu- 
sively its offspring — by productions in poetry and philosophy, 
history and eloquence, radiant in all that genius can impart; 
by the pyramid and the column, the "solemn temple" and the 
"gorgeous palace-," by the "cloud-capt tower," the perforated 
mountain, the excavated lake and river, and the wonders of 
navigation by wind and by steam — these and the innumerable 
sublime and exquisite creations of painters and musicians, 
sculptors and other artists, sufficiently attest the mightiness of 
education. And they are so many stars of the highest order 
and brightest emblazonry, in the heraldry of the teacher. So 
powerful indeed is -education in the work of improvement, that 
it is second only to Creative Power, in making the most illus- 
trious of our race what they are. It completes- what Creative 
Power had only begun. From the universality and absolute- 
ness of its dominion "over human affairs, it may be regarded as 
the Vicegerent of the Deity on earth. Without it, man would 
be one of the most vile and ferocious, yet helpless and misera- 
ble of sublunary beings. With it, he is "monarch of all he 
surveys." 

To form yet a more clear and definite conception of the 
sway of education over the character and destiny of human 
beings, compare the Laplander or the Kamschadale, the Bos- 
cheseman or the Papuan, with the highly cultivated European 
or American; and mark the issue. The difference in intellect 
and efficiency, morals, manners, and corporeal attributes, be- 
tween those members of the human family, you will find to be 
striking even to amazement— may appearances be trusted,quite 
as great, as that between the uncultured savages, and the mis- 
shapen Golok or Wild Man cf the woods. And this difference, 
I say, is in no small degree attributable to the influence of 



6 

teachers. Yet in this comparison, neither is education perfect 
in the European or the American (for it may be still improved 
in them,) nor altogether wanting in the beings contrasted with 
them. The absolute debasement, therefore of uneducated 
man, and of course the utmost potency of that agent, which, 
from such deep degradation raises him to such a height in the 
scale of existence are hitherto unknown to us. 

But to understand the power of education in its entire ex- 
tent, and in all its modes and forms of influence, we must take 
a different and less restricted view of it. We must contem- 
plate it in its action, not on individuals, and at given times, but 
on communities and nations, and at all times; and on the world 
in the aggregate. Under this aspect of the inquiry, adverting 
in retrospect to a far distant period, the mystical grandeur of 
Egypt and the wonders of ancient Persia and Palestine, the 
glories of Greece and the mightiness of Rome, present them- 
selves as a few of the trophies of education. Compare these 
with the portentous gloom of the Dark Ages, which, like a 
second chaos, overspread the earth, when education and its 
products lay prostrate under the tread of the Goth and the 
Vandal — and the contrast is rich in instruction, and interest. As 
the noon-day brightness of the sun, suddenly extinguished in a 
total eclipse, testifies to the loveliness and value of light in the 
material world, so did the nightfall of the Dark Ages in the 
world of the mind. And as the departure of the sun from the 
heavens summons to their banquet of blood the monsters of the 
forest, so did the going down of the sun of education awaken 
to the work of desolation and ruin, that fiercer and more insa- 
tiate monster, uncultivated man. 

Descending through later ages to the present era, take a 
survey of the globe by land and by water, and mark how it is 
studded, and ornamented, and changed, by the miracles of ed- 
ucation. No tongue can describe, no pencil paint, nor scarce- 
ly can the most vigorous fancy conceive, the differences in 
science and sound government, civilization, moral order, litera- 
ture, and the arts, between France and Great Britain now, 
and at the time when they were subjugated by the legions of 



Ceesar. From those nations have issued streams of living light 
and knowledge, and other prodigies of mind, which nothing 
can extinguish or destroy, short of the wreck of the earth which 
they adorn. The fearful grandeur and consolidated power of 
Prussia, Austria, and Russia, more especially the latter, form 
another monument of the sway of education, to which" anti- 
quity had nothing to compare. Before the military array of 
those nations, educated as they now are, Alexander and his 
Macedonians, Caesar and his cohorts, would have been but 
stubble in the fire, or chaff before the storm. Nor is our own 
country without her wonders from the same source. Within 
the last two hundred years, education has perhaps done more 
for the glory and happiness of the New World, than even of 
the Old, 

When our forefathers arrived on the shores of the country 
they had selected as their home, they encountered but a wilder- 
ness; where the lights of intellectual, and the sobrieties and 
courtesies of moral and social nature were unknown and disre- 
garded; and which was trodden only by the savage and his 
prey. But, since that period, marvels of improvement, of 
every description, have followed each other, with n rapidity 
and constancy of march, and have spread abroad through the 
land, with a width of diffusion, which superstition, in former 
times, would have ascribed to agencies higher than human. 
Of these multiplied products of education in our country, the 
most striking and stupendous were the war of the Revolution, 
and the formation and establishment of the Federal Govern* 
ment. With th«m, considered in their principles, economy, 
and relations, the world presents nothing, in the same line, 
that will bear a comparison. In their display of courage and 
fortitude, wisdom, talent, and moral grandeur, they far surpass 
all other similar achievements that history records. Other Re- 
volutions indeed, in other lands, have rolled their bloody 
rounds; and other forms of government have been erected on 
the ruins of preceding ones; but nothing like those of the 
United States, have been presented to the admiration and 
wonder of our race. And, I repeat, that they are the offspring 
of all-controlling education* 



Here a question vitally important, not only to ourselves, but 
to the citizens of all free governments now existing, or to exist 
hereafter, presents itself for solution. Has education comple- 
ted its work in the United States? Has it so far enlightened 
the intellects, and improved and confirmed the morals of the 
people, as to nt them for the enjoyment and exercise of the 
privileges they posses.^und^r the institutions that have descend- 
ed to them from their fathers? In simpler language; has it 
fully prepared them for that great work of sovereignty, the 
highest of social and political achievements, the task of self- 
government? Interesting as this question is, as a mere theme 
of inquiry, and momentous as is its affirmative to our individual 
rights and immunities, and our national welfare, a decided nega- 
tive is the only reply, that truth can sanction or honesty 
render. As a people, we are not educated in a degree corres- 
ponding to the privileges we enjoy, and the duties they impose 
on us. Those privileges therefore will be forfeited and lost, 
unless the caste of our education be greatly improved. Of the 
truth of this prediction, evidence crowds on us in a ratio fear- 
fully increasing with the progress of time. Nothing can save 
us from the fate of all Republics that have gone before us — 
corruption, misrule, anarchy, and despotism — but improve- 
ment by education in our intellects and morals. History warns 
us, that they fell for want of this; and so sha-1 we — an event as 
unquestionable, and as directly the product of a law of nature, 
now in operation, as that the approaching winter will strip 
your magnificent forests of their leaves, and your prairies of 
their verdure — unless, I say, the catastrophe be averted by the 
agency referred to. 

Does any one reply to me, that this is but empty prophesy — 
as groundless and visionary, as it is gloomy and disheartening? 
— that sixty years ago our liberties were won for us, by the 
swords of our lathers? — and that we are as resolutely deter- 
mined, and as amply p .-spared to maintain them now, as were 
the heroes and patriots of seventx-six, with Franklin, and 
Hancock, and Washington at their head? — that, enjoying as 
we do, the franchise of electing our public servants, and in- 



9 

structing and controlling them, in the discharge of their du- 
ties, our freedom audits concomitant privileges are secure; 
and that therefore all apprehension and gloomy foreboding in 
relation to them are imaginary and futile? Is such the answer 
prepared by any one to the remarks here submitted to you? 

My rejoinder is simple, and, I trust, satisfactory. The 
danger arrayed against the liberties of our fathers in 1776 was 
totally different from that which threatens ours in 1836; and 
much less insidious and likely to destroy. The danger then was 
open assault and violence from without; and the eye could des- 
cry, and the sword repel it. But the danger now, assuming no 
visible shape, is from craft, intrigue, and corruption within ;which 
nothing but intelligence and virtue can resist — an ampler meas- 
ure of those protective qualities,! am compelled to add, than is 
possessed, at present, by the general population of the U. States. 
Let me entreat you to understand me, as not addressing you 
thus, in the spirit, or with the feelings of a political partisan. 
Far from it. An act of the kind would be as indelicate and 
unbecoming in me, as it would be unworthy of you, and of the 
occasion we celebrate. I speak of the political condition of 
our country, not merely as it now is, but as I know it to have 
been for the last thirty or forty years. No administration of our 
government is, more than another, exempt from the charge, 
except the administration of Washington, which was alone 
paternal and patriotic, virtuous and pure, — founded in wisdom 
and conducted in the spirit of rectitude and honour — alone 
free from the sordidness of self, the injustice of favouritism, 
and the plague-spots of party. The reason is plain. No more 
could corruption or intrigue, or any form of dishonesty, polit- 
ical or moral, subsist under the frown of the Chief Magistrate 
then in power, than can the pestilent vapour endure the radi- 
ance of the mid-day sun! The lightning of his eye was as fatal 
to them, as had been that of his sword to the enemies of freedom. 
Nor did the boldest partisan dare to approach him with an un- 
hallowed request,to procure the promotion of the incompetent or 
the unworthy. He was truly President of the United States, 
above party influence and feelings, doing justice to all, and fa- 



10 

vojs to none-and aiming exclusively at the welfare of his country* 
His successors in office (in standing and virtue, he has had no 
successor) have been but the chiefs of parties — upheld by their 
trains of feudal retainers, whom they have rewarded for their 
services by appointment and place! 

As respects the subsequent a dministrations, the charge just 
preferred is true; some of them being more deeply amenable 
to it than others. And faithful history will say hereafter, 
whether the evil does not increase with the progress of time. 
When one of the heavenly bodies departs from its track, there 
is reason to apprehend that it would tumble into the sun, did 
not the others, acting in concert, and co-operating with its 
own laws, restore it to its place. In like manner, unless the 
influence of education arrest our government in its erratic 
career, and replace it in its proper orbit, , it will, as already 
predicted, plunge through anarchy into the grasp of despotism. 
But to return. 

Did the danger to our liberties, I say, proceed as it did in 
Seventy-six, from the bayonets of an external foe, its duration 
would be transient, and its issue certain. It would be met as 
courageously, and repelled as triumphantly, by the heroic spir- 
its of the present day, as it was by the Invincibles of our re- 
volutionary conflict. For it need not here be told by me, hun- 
dreds of well fought fields, and blood-red decks having proclaimed 
it elsewhere, that Americans always do their duty in battle. 
But there is a danger to our freedom, invisible I say to the 
physical eye, and immeasurably greater than that of the sword. 
It is the danger of intrigue, corruption, and bribery, in some 
of the forms they habitually put on, and of the wily and 
treacherous practices they pursue. Nor can this b'e success- 
fully opposed by personal bravery, or any thing pertaining to 
the profession of arms. It must be met and overthrown by 
the resources of education, else its triumph is certain; and des- 
pots and their minions, scoffing at our experiment of self-gov- 
ernment, and exulting in its failure, will aid in rivetlingon us 
the letters of slavery. 

From these remarks on the general power and usefulness 



11 

of education, and its peculiar importance to ourselves, as cit- 
izens of a free representative government, I shall proceed to 
the consideration of the manner and means, by which its ben- 
efits may be most readily secured to us. In other words; how 
it may best be improved in its character, and most readily 
diffused throughout the States of the Union. This view, if 
fully followed out, would eventuate in a scheme of national 
education. But I must not now attempt an enterprise of such 
compass. Even when contracted to* its narrowest limits, it is 
still a subject so extensive in its range, and so abundant in mat- 
ter, that I can do nothing more, in the time and space within 
which I must restrict myself, than hastily sketch an outline of 
my opinions. That order and method may not be altogether 
wanting in the discussion, education will be considered under 
the usual division of Popular and Liberal — Classical edu- 
cation making a branch of the latter. 

By Popular education, I mean, as you must be aware, that 
which is accessible to the people at large, and which many 
of them receive. From the nature of the case, therefore, it 
be neither extensive nor profound. By Liberal education, that 
which is attainable, only, or chiefly, by the wealthier classes. 
This, as its denomination imports, and as will be made to ap- 
pear more fully hereafter, is of a higher order. Which of these 
two castes of education is most essential to the public welfare, 
is a question I leave to the scrutiny of others. They are both 
so essential, that a lack of either can never fail to be pernicious 
in its consequences. 

Popular education, I say, belongs more particularly to that 
great class of the community, which, from its majority in num- 
bers, has the command of social and political power, and is 
privileged to delegate it for special purposes. When competent 
in amount and sound in condition, it prepares its possessors for 
the judicious and successful transaction of private affairs; 
and, in the exercise of their public immunities, it enlightens 
and directs them, and ministers essentially to their interests 
and security. More especially, in the employment of then- 
elective franchise, it is their buckler and their shield— their 



12 

most effectual safeguard against the devices and intrigues of de- 
magogues, who would mislead them, and their most trust- 
worthy monitor, in the choice of candidates for public stations. 
Without it, they are unqualified for such choice, and liable to be 
made instruments in the hands of designing and unprincipled 
men, for the accomplishment of selfish and pernicious ends. 
For, in free governments, the illiterate and uninformed are but 
ladders for the intriguing. to climb into power. And when 
their object is attained, they look down in scorn on the dupes, 
if they do not spurn them, on whose shoulders they had as- 
cended. This truth should be made known to the people in 
their youth, as a part of their education, that their pride may unite 
with their intelligence, to protect them alike from the insult and 
deception, with which they are threatened. 

Though it may not be asserted, that all who are destitute of 
the benefits of a liberal education are unfit for public station, 
nor that every one possessing such benefits is fit for it; yet none 
will deny, that, other things being equal, the liberally educated 
are best prepared for all the higher operations of mind, in pub- 
lic as well as in private life. In the United States much more 
than in any other country, all offices and appointments are 
open alike to men of all forms and degrees, of education — and 
even to those who can hardly be said to be educated at all. 
Nor is the measure perhaps altogether disadvantageous. It 
gives scope for action, in many cases, to genius and laudable 
ambition, which they could not have had without it, and thus de- 
velops latent powers, which would otherwise lie dormant and 
be lost to society. That it has also however its concomitant 
evils must be obvious to every one. It is the chief source of 
the swarms of crafty demagogues and aspirants to office, that 
inundate our country, fan into perpetual flame the fires of 
party, make a business of intrigue themselves and teach it to 
others, and breathe but in the atmosphere of discord and strife. 
And these flocks of harpies, as foul and detestable as those of 
the poet, and of much worse omen, are most fearfully on the 
increase. Their number now, compared to that which annoy- 
ed us at the commencement of the present century, is proba- 
bly in the proportion of a hundred to one. And their skilful- 



13 

ness in deception and the perpetration of mischief has augment- 
ed in perhaps a corresponding ratio. From this condition of 
things arises the alarming truth, that the people of the United 
States, as a body, are more deeply infected with the spirit of 
political ambition, trickishness, and fraud, than any other peo- 
ple now in existence — or that ever did exist. 

The very fact, that State preferment is open to every one, 
excites hundreds of thousands to aspire to it, and to become agi- 
tators and annoyers of the community, who would otherwise 
pursue some humble but useful vocation, for which alone they 
are fitted by nature. Nor have they a right to aim at any 
thing higher. It is not true, that all men are born with "equal 
rights" any more than that they are' born with equal talents. 
As far as public station is concerned, rights and talents are 
the measures of each other. No man has a right to an office-, 
which he wants talents to administer. Nor can the suffrages 
of the people confer on him such a right; because the proceed- 
ing is in violation of a law of natwe, which is tantamount to 
the will of God. And the aspirants here referred to, being un- 
able to succeed in their designs, from a want of strength of 
mind and character, united to an entire destitution of personal 
worth, have recourse to cunning and artifice; or, from a 
spirit of servility, added to other traits of meanness, become 
panders to the ambition of higher and stronger jugglers of 
State, and descend to the sycophancy and vileness of parasites 
and retainers. In this way is the whole community, I say, be- 
coming imbued, to a fearful extent, with the rank leaven of po- 
litical corruption. Nor is all yet told. Of this career of petty 
and misplaced aspiration to power, intemperance rarely fails 
to be the issue. For the tavern and the dram-shop are the 
places of resort of vulgar politicians; where, after having 
forged their calumnies, and concerted their plots against the 
upright and deserving, they hold high carnival, and celebrate 
their orgies. Thus is useful industry abandoned by them, hon- 
esty and moral observances neglected or violated, and habits 
of dissipation and debauchery formed. And thus do sottish- 
ness and beggary prove the lot of some of them, guilt and the 



1-1 

penitentiary of others, and ruin iu some shape of nearly all. 
Such is and must be the fate of the idle, unprincipled, and 
designing, who, pursuing no productive employment them- 
selves, and contributing in no shape to the welfare of society, 
but disturbing its harmony by personal slander and party ex- 
citement, seek to subsist, by the arts of deception, on the 
labour pf their fellow men. 

For these evils the only remedy is a system of Popular edu- 
cation, wisely planned and digested, faithfully pursued, and 
skilfully executed, and extended throughout the Union. If any 
thing should be strictly national, in compass and character, 
under a federate and representative government, it is the men- 
tal discipline of those who constitute the nation. On no other 
principle can union and harmony, order and prosperity be so 
certainly attained by them. Discrepant views, jarring inter- 
ests, and incongruous elements are known to be incompatible 
with the welfare of families. And a nation is but a family on 
an extended Scale. 

But Popular education in the United States, on which the 
moral, intellectual, and political soundness of the country so 
essentially depends, is in a deplorable condition. Three or 
four States perhaps excepted, this is true of the Union. And 
even of the excepted States, it is true to an extent sufficiently 
ominous. The reason is plain. Except in the cities, and a 
few of the larger towns of the Union, the teachers of primary 
schools are as unfit for their vocation, as imagination can con- 
ceive. Their want of knowledge and letters, manners, dignity, 
and character can hardly be surpassed. They are therefore 
disqualified alike to instruct and govern, set example and com- 
mand respect. In truth they are disqualified for every thing 
connected with education; because they are wholly uned- 
ucated themselves. Too indolent to labour with their hands, 
and too ignorant or feeble-minded to be concerned in bu- 
siness where intellect and knowledge are requisite, they be- 
come "school-masters," and teach their scholars bad English, 
bad habits, bad manners, and too often bad morals. I do not 
aver that this is the case with all of them. But I pronounce it 



15 

true of a very large majority of those of them i have personal- 
ly known, or of whose character and standing I have been cor- 
rectly informed. 

Vitally important to us as Popular education is, it is more 
miserably provided for, than any other form of business in the 
community. And we sustain and tolerate more abuses in it, 
than in any other. To this the lowest mechanical trade forms 
no exception. True; large sums of money are annually ex- 
pended on it, by many of the States. Each State in the Un- 
ion, I believe, possesses its "education fund" and freely disbur- 
ses it, no doubt from patriotic and beneficent motives; and un- 
der the belief that much good is effected by it. But the money 
thus disposed of is virtually wasted, by being bestowed on 
men, who do little or nothing in return for it — many of whom 
indeed do more harm than good — for bad teaching is worse 
than no teaching at all ; error, prejudice, and incorrect practices 
being its principal products. 

To an extent so amazing is this evil carried, that it is neither 
unfounded nor extravagant to say, that, in thousands of instan- 
ces, in the United States, much more attention is paid to the 
breeding and improvement of domestic animals, than to the 
education of children. And men are employed to teach the 
latter, who would not be intrusted with the care of the former. 
In a far distant country, it is well known that the celebrated 
Oberlin found an ignoramus training children, who had been 
dismissed for incompetency from the supervision of pigs. He 
was unfit to be a swine-herd — the most ignominious of herds- 
men! yet he was teaching human beings! Nor is our own 
country free from the disgrace of school-masters equally un- 
qualified! The stock-fairs, which abound in our country, may 
be offered as evidence, not easily set aside or refuted, that 
more solicitude is felt for the improvement of cattle, than for 
that of the human race. At those shows, which are instituted 
with much pomp, and at no little expense, premiums are 
awarded to the breeders of the best horses, cows, mules, sheep, 
and other sorts of domestic animals. But no public provisions 
are made for doing'suitable honors to the best instructors of 



1G 

boys and girls. Such I mean is the neglect of this vital inter- 
est through the country at large — laudable exceptions being 
found in a few places, where the people are more enlightened, 
and mental cultivation more liberally prized. No wonder 
then, that Popular education is in so degraded a condition. 

For the lamentable deficiencies' of the teachers of common 
country schools, two substantial reasons may be rendered. 
As already stated, those teachers are themselves untaught, and 
must therefore be deficient; nor are the salaries they receive 
sufficiently ample, to secure and reward the services of com- 
petent men. As a general rule, the emoluments of country 
"school-masters" are inferior to those of journeymen mechan- 
ics; and greatly below the receipts of dram-selling grocers, 
pedlars, and overseers. That their abilities are humble, there- 
fore, and their performances of little value, is not surprising. 
It would be matter of surprise, if the case were otherwise. In 
instruction, as in other forms of business, the rank of talents 
employed, and the worth of services rendered, are usually 
found to bear a fair proportion to the salaries received. And 
that it will continue to be so, comports with the principles of 
human nature. 

It has been observed that large sums of money have been 
expended annually, by most of the States of the Union, on 
Popular education. To this may be added, that much time 
has been consumed, innumerable Resolutions passed, and vol- 
umes of Reports made and published, in devising and matur- 
ing suitable schemes for that caste of instruction, by Legisla- 
tures, societies, and well-meaning and public-spirited individu- 
als. And still but little improvement has been made in it. 
For this there must be substantial reasons. Nor do they ap- 
pear to me to be deeply concealed. When canvasses are held 
fur the selection of teachers, the choice usually falls, not so 
much on those who are best qualified to teath ; as on those who 
are willing to attempt to teach for the mcagercst salaries. 
Thus does the process assume a puny, chaffering, "cheap- 
shop" character, and, like every other effort, where miserly 
meanness usurps the plaee oi' liberal eeonomv, terminates in 



17 

disappointment, if not in some other more pernicious form 
of mischief. Those again who have been engaged in prepar- 
ing schemes of education, have been not only unqualified for 
the task, from their deficiency in the knowledge of mental phil- 
osophy; but they have begun the business at the wrong end. 
The prevailing notion seems to be, that Popular education 
must be first provided for and commenced, as the basis of ed- 
ucation of a higher order — that, in fact, the "higher order" 
rests on the lower and is sustained by it, as the arch-work of 
the bridge is sustained by its abutments and piers. But this 
is a mistake, as must be obvious to every one, who will examine 
the subject, under the guidance of reason, and with the delibe- 
ration it deserves. Nor can any thing be simpler or easier 
than to rectify it. In rearing the fabric of general education, 
the common order of construction must be reversed. The 
architect must build from the top downward. In no other way 
can he complete his edifice. In less equivocal language; the 
higher caste of education must be patronized and matured first, 
for the formation of suitable teachers for the lower — teachers I 
mean for primary schools. Without such instructors, as al- 
ready mentioned, common schools are a nuisance. And those 
teachers can be formed only in institutions of a superior order. 
Nor will common high schools, colleges, and universities an- 
swer for their production. Such institutions produce scholars; 
but are they calculated for the formation of competent teachers? 
I reply that they are not. Every scholar, however richly his 
mind may be stored, is not fitted for the work of instruction. 
Teaching is an art; and, like other arts, it can be learnt only 
by preparation and practice. In further resemblance of other 
arts, moreover, it requires in those who would excel . or even 
be respectable in it, certain given native qualities, without 
which failure is inevitable. Some of the qualities indispensa- 
ble to the teacher, are patience, perseverance, evenness of 
temper, self-command, a fitness to govern and conciliate, a 
strong sense of moral duty, dignity of deportment, a turn for 
order, punctuality, and method, and a promptness, perspicuity, 
and agreeableness in the communication of knowledge. He 
3 



18 

who does not possess most of these, should never enter on the 
work of instruction. 

As relates to this point, I deem it my duty, on the present 
occasion, to speak in terms of deep reprehension, of many of 
our candidates for political favours. More or less at all times, 
but especially when they are soliciting the suffrages of their 
fellow-citizens for places of honour and profit, those charac- 
ters disseminate error through the community, and lay the 
foundation of much mischief in respect to education. The 
more certainly to propitiate the illiterate and uninformed por- 
tion of the people, and render them favourable to the objects 
of their ambition and cupidity, they profess themselves ardent 
friends and advocates of "Popular education," which, as al- 
ready stated, belongs to that class of the people, and often de- 
pict "Liberal education" in such colours, as to excite prejudi- 
ces against it in the common mind. Instead of representing 
the latter form of education in its true character and relations, 
as the parent and sustainer of the former, they even, in the 
reckless spirit and Vandalic temper which characterize the par- 
tizans and demagogues of the day, denounce it as the source 
of an "aristocracy of learning," unfriendly to the "rights and 
interests of the people," and incompatible with "republican sim- 
plicity" — as if such simplicity, ignorance, and illiteracy were 
the same! By representations of this sort, they prejudice the 
populace against the higher seats of learning, and against liberal 
learning itself, and render them hostile to the only course of 
policy by which Popular education can be brought to its proper 
standard and effect, in improving the public mind in intelligence 
and virtue, and be diffused as a blessing throughout the com- 
munity. 

The mischief moreover thus engendered does not terminate 
here. By the artifices alluded to, not only are the populace 
rendered inimical to high schools, and the higher style of men- 
tal cultivation, but also to those who possess such style, or 
who, from wealth, or other causes, move in a sphere superior 
to their own. Thus, between the different classes of the com- 
munity, who are but elements oi' the same bodv. whose inter- 



19 

ests are of course the same, and who ought therefore to live in 
harmony with each other, and in the interchange of kind and 
useful offices, — between these separate castes, which. are equal- 
ly essential in constituting the aggregate of the State, and which 
should cultivate toward each other a spirit of fraternity, and 
sentiments of good will, are awakened and fostered, by the 
sinister practices of the aspiring and unworthy, those feelings 
of envy and jealousy, and that collision in measures, which vir-. 
iuaily amount to a war on the part of the poor against the rich, 
and of the ignorant against the informed, and constitute, at the 
present eventful crisis, one of the most ill-favoured omens that 
threatens our country. Nor is it possible for this evil to be 
removed, and its consequences averted, unless a new system 
of public instruction be introduced, dispread throughout the 
Union, and administered with the faithfulness and ability it 
demands. 

In a word, Popular education will never attain in our coun- 
try the perfection it requires, and of which it is susceptible, 
until those employed to instruct shall be compelled to serve an 
apprenticeship to their art, in common with all other artists, 
whether of the mechanical or liberal classes. For instructors 
alone are exempt from such training. My meaning is, that 
this form of instruction will remain imperfect, until suitable 
institutions shall be established, maintained, and skilfully ad- 
ministered, for the formation of teachers. And it must be for the 
formation of teachers alone — not for the mere production of 
scholars. As already intimated, college and university pupils, 
destined ultimately for the learned professions, are unsuitable 
teachers for popular schools. The reason is plain. They are 
not bred specifically to the business; which, in all cases and 
employments, implies, in a higher or lower degree, a want of 
fitness. And in no calling is the implication, or the fact, strong- 
er or more certain, than in that of education. Common Col- 
lege scholars take the direction of schools, without any pecu- 
liar preparatory discipline; they are of course unskilled in 
teaching; and, by the time they have become somewhat expe- 
rienced in the art, and fitted to be useful in it. and have acquir- 



20 

ed the means of prosecuting their professional studies, they 
abandon it, and prepare themselves for their final pursuits — 
and other inexperienced instructors succeed them, to follow a 
like uninstruetive career. Thus does the chain of succession 
go on, unexamined and unsuspected, because it is forged within 
the walls of a college, where the workmen are believed to be 
competent, though each link of it is imperfect in itself, and un- 
. skilfully fitted to the place it occupies. Yet are these college- 
bred youths, by far the best teachers that have usually the 
charge of popular schools, because they have some knowledge 
of letters, in which other teachers are shamefully deficient. 

Let schools for the education and practical discipline of 
teachers alone, then, I say, be established in the United States, 
as is now done in Prussia, Austria, and elsewhere, under the 
superintendence of qualified instructors. Let the pupils to 
them be selected, on account of the suitable qualities they pos- 
sess, and let there be an understanding, that they design to 
follow teaching as a life-prof ession, not as a temporary or oc- 
casional employment. In completion of this arrangement, 
when their education, which should be appropriate and tho- 
rough, is finished, and their diplomas conferred, they should 
not, except under peculiar circumstances, be employed as 
teachers, without giving a pledge, that they will continue their 
instruction in the same school, for at least six or seven years — 
unless permitted, for substantial reasons, to retire from it at an 
earlier period. Few occurrences are more injurious to schools, 
than the frequent change of instructors. Each change is ac- 
companied by some corresponding change in the mode of in- 
struction, by which the mind of the pupil becomes unsettled 
and perhaps dissatisfied, and his progress in his studies more 
or less obstructed. A material advantage, moreover, to Pop- 
ular education, arising from the establishment of schools for 
teachers, will be the introduction into schemes of teaching of 
the requisite degree of uniformity and concert. All schemes 
of the sort should, to a certain extent, correspond to such gene- 
ral system, as may be deemed advisable, and be adopted as a 
standard. 



21 

The situation and construction, size and furnishing of school- 
houses, are objects worthy of much more attention, than is 
usually bestowed on them. So is the number of pupils, which 
each teacher is allowed to superintend, as well as their divis- 
ion into classes, and the number of hours they are required to 
study, without relaxation. On no account should school-rooms 
be crowded, especially during weather when the doors and 
windows are closed. Though these details are small in them- 
selves, they are often momentous and lasting in their conse- 
quences. For we should never forget, that, in the words of the 
poet, 

"Little things are great to little men;" 

and more especially to little children. 

In fine; popular schools, where every thing practicable 
should be well and faithfully done, for the promotion of intelli- 
gence and virtue in those who are to be, in power and influence, 
the "lords of the land," should be under the supervision of the 
wisdom and talent of the land ; and be no longer left, as they 
have heretofore been, and still are, to the direction of those, 
who are incompetent to the direction of their own affairs — or 
who direct them, at best with but little ability — and who, 
through weakness and ignorance, are still more incompetent to 
public affairs. 

The system of education practised by the ancient Persians 
was in some respects wiser, and in all respects much better 
adapted to the end for which it ivas designed, than any system 
now in vogue in modern nations. Among that great and war- 
like people, the education of youth was compulsory. No one 
was allowed to remain uneducated. Hence ignorance and 
rudeness were banished from the State. And the training of 
the moral faculties was as strictly attended to, as that of the 
intellectual. 

Better — infinitely better, that Popular education, properly 
conducted, should fee rendered compulsory in the United States, 
than be marred as it now is, or entirely neglected. Ignorance 
and its concomitants, which are prolific sources of vice, misrule, 
and misery are not only disgraceful to a people ; they are among 



22 

the greatest of evils; and, like other evils, they should be extir- 
minated or prevented by public authority. The mode of effect- 
ing this, I may not venture to prescribe. But the correctness 
of the principle I fearlessly maintain. If parents neglect to 
educate their children, or if they set them a flagitious and ruin- 
ous example, those children should be taken from them, 
and be educated at their expense — provided they have 
the means; and if not, at the expense of the State. The 
children of the poor should be treated in the same way . 1 am 
aware that'evils might attend this proceeding. But, in a free 
representative government, no evil is so great as tm.uneducct' 
tedpopulace. At every hazard, therefore, it should be put 
down — voluntarily on the part of the parents, if practicable — 
compulsively, if necessary. If a father can be compelled to 
provide for his children corporeal food; why not in like man- 
ner, food for the mind? No scheme of personal freedom, should 
be carried so far, as to put in jeopardy the freedom and safety 
of the Stale — which an ignorant populace unavoidably does. 
Though the Prussian system of education is believed to be the 
best now existing; it is not so perfectly calculated to subserve 
the purpose for which it is designed, as was that of Persia, under 
the control of her arbitrary government. 

Should schemes of Popular education, founded on princi- 
ciples like the foregoing, and ably administered, be established 
throughout the country; and should the system be duly perse- 
vered in; the nation will become enlightened and improved; 
our liberties will be secure; and our government will remain a 
permanent beacon-light of freedom — an object to be admired, 
and an example to be imitated, by freemen throughout the 
world. But if the people be allowed, from the want of 
suitable schools, to continue ignorant, and under the sway of 
impulse and passion, rather than of enlightened intellect and 
sound morals, they will be fit instruments in the hands of the 
unprincipled and ambitious; misrule will invade us; anarchy 
and state convulsion will ensue; and the drama will close by 
the surrender of our liberties to some victorious military adven- 
turer. Such has been the fate of other Republics, from likv 



23 

causes; and the same will be ours, unless we avert it, by the 
discipline recommended. And should we fall, the victims of 
our wanton neglect, we shall involve in our ruin the freedom, 
rights, and interests of our race,perhaps for centuries — possibly 
for ever. The open champions, and secret friends of liberty, 
in every climate and country where the seed has been planted, 
discouraged by our failure, will abandon hope, and sink into 
inaction* Nor is it easy to conceive how any other people 
can hereafter make an experiment of self government, under 
auspices more* favorable and promising, than those we have 
enjoyed. I need scarcely add, that the system of education 
here advised, can never be established and rendered available, 
without such an increase of the salaries of teachers as may 
enlist men of talents in the cause, reward them for their ser- 
vices, and secure to them in society the consideration and 
standing, to which the dignity and usefulness of their profes- 
sion entitles them. 

As respects the moral education of the community, which 
offers the surest guaranty of all that is most estimable in so- 
cial, safe and valuable in political, and desirable in individual 
life, we must look for that to other sources than popular 
schools. In no public institutions of any description can 
that be satisfactorily cultivated and matured — though it may 
be aided in them. Its birth-place and only source of salutary nur- 
ture and training, is at home — in the nursery where it should 
begin — by the family-fireside where it should be continued — 
and in every spot, and under the influence of every object and 
action beneath the parental roof. For to produce the result so 
-important in all respects,and so earnestly to be coveted and toil- 
ed for, every family should be in itself a school of morals. And pa- 
ren's must be the teachers. This is true, more particularly of 
mothers, whose influence over their children, for good or evil, 
may be rendered almost boundless. Hence the weight and sa- 
credness of maternal responsibility, in relation to the moral train- 
ing of children. And deep and condemnatory is the delinquency 
of that mother, who neglects her offspring for any other engage- 
ment short of necessity — more especially should she neglect 



24 

them from motives of vanity and perverted taste, to run the 
round of pleasure and fashion, and to mingle and shine among 
the gaudes of the day. I shall only add, what every body 
knows, that morals and manners are taught to much better 
effect, by example than by precept — though both are requisite. 
That parent who leads himself a correct and virtuous life, and 
protects his children from profligate society, though he reads 
them but rarely a moral lesson, does much more to restrain them 
from vice and rear them to virtue, than he whose lips distil per- 
petually, in the most solemn and persuasive accents,the sound- 
est precepts, while his life is a tissue of irregularity and crime. 
As it is now administered throughout the country, Popular 
education is so defective in its elements, that the benefits de- 
rived from it are exceedingly limited. In proof of this, it does 
not furnish matter to fit those who receive it for any one mode 
of life, or form of business, more than for another. It commu- 
nicates nothing but general instruction; and even that on a 
scale extremely contracted. It instructs those who avail 
themselves of it in reading, writing, and ciphering, and gives 
them perhaps a smattering of geography and bad grammar; 
and there its lessons end. Not another element does this petty 
scheme of instruction contain. An acquaintance with nature, 
her powers and modes of action, which alone constitutes 
practical and useful knowledge in the concerns of life, makes 
no part of it. The art of observation, which is but another 
name for a perusal of the Book of Nature, and which is the 
most unerring means of attaining correct and solid informa- 
tion, forms no share of the discipline practised in our popular 
schools. Instead of being taught and encouraged to use their 
senses, as the natural inlets of knowledge from every thing 
around them, children are taught to believe, that books alone 
should be the objects of their attention. 

Am I told, that it is incompatible with the order and good 
government of schools, for the pupils to do aught but attend 
to their books, during the hours of study and recitation? I 
reply; be it so. Let the importance then of active and accu- 
rate observation, during hours of leisure, and throughout the 



25 

whole of life, be impressed on them, as an indispensable element 
of their education; and let them be disciplined in the practice 
of it, when opportunity permits. I refer to this the more 
earnestly, in consideration of the immense mischief, which all 
men do, at times, both to themselves and to society, by means 
of loose and incorrect observation, or by not observing at all. 
To such an extent is this evil carried, that it is hazardous to 
repose implicit confidence in reports, even when their authors 
have been eye-witnesses of the events, and have no disposition 
to falsify or deceive. Surely then the art of observation (which 
is only to see, and hear, and taste, and smell, and feel things 
as they are) cannot be too early taught to children, nor its im- 
portance too sedulously inculcated on them, as a part of their 
education. To show further and more forcibly the importance 
of this injunction, let the following simple experiment be made* 
Take, from the common walks of life, twenty men, without 
selection, and make them spectators of the same general events 
which shali be marked by a variety of incident and detail. 
Within an hour after the close of the scene, let them be exan> 
ined on their knowledge and recollection of the particulars of 
it^andit Will be found that scarcely two of them will concur 
in their narratives. Why? Because they have been inatten- 
tive and inaccurate in their observation. They have not so 
employed their perceptive powers, as to collect by them the 
matter of information, which they are calculated and intended 
by nature to receive. Hence the discrepancies of the testi- 
mony often sworn to by witnesses in Courts of Justice; and 
hence also the frequent and gross misrepresentations of the 
substance of the discourses of public speakers, by those who 
have heard them — but not listened to them. This evil can be 
removed only by strictness of attention and accuracy of obser- 
vation; which ought, I say, to be inculcated, as elements of ed- 
ucation. 

As far as I have gained a knowledge of their contents, the 
school-books used in our primary institutions, are exceedingly 
defective. They contain nothing that can be called appropri- 
ate or well-defined knowledge — such knowledge, I mean, as is 
4 



26 

calculated to qualify for business those who receive it, by its 
affinity to any definite and practical end. The matter con- 
tained in them is fitted much better for momentary amusement 
and pastime, than for useful instruction. Yet such are the 
constitution and character of the minds of children, even 
at an early age, that it is easy to find subjects that will impart 
to them both pleasure and useful information at the same 
time. 

Such, however, are not the subjects treated of in the tor- 
rents of juvenile school-books now gushing from the press, un- 
der popular and imposing titles, and with pompous recommen- 
datory certificates, to impose on the ignorant and unthinking, 
for the benefit of the artful. Those subjects, as well as the 
manner in which they are handled, address themselves to the 
feelings much more than to the intellect. 

Nor, apart from books intended for education in schools, is 
there any hazard in asserting, that the abuse of the press, as 
respects both the quantity and quality of its general issues, 
constitutes one of the most formidable evils of the time. It 
is a fountain, that seems inexhaustible, of heterogeneous mat- 
ter, a large portion of which not only ministers to frivolity, 
and vitiates the taste, but tends to demoralize the mind of the 
community. It pampers and strengthens the animal passions 
much more than the moral sentiments, or the intellectual fac- 
ulties, and thereby directly panders to vice. And all this, to 
inflate the vanity of conceited scribblers, and gratify the cu- 
pidity of speculating publishers. For there is abroad a spirit 
of speculation, in book-making, almost as flagrant, as that which 
maddens the land-jobbing, stock-breeding and cotton-planting 
part of the community — and it is infinitely more pernicious. 
With all my admiration of the talents, and veneration of the 
virtues of Sir Walter Scott, I am compelled to believe, that he 
has unintentionally done more mischief to English literature, 
and its readers, than any other man that has ever lived. An d 
Bulwer is pursuing a similar career. 

Those two mighty authors arc the parents of the clustering 
■warms of novelists, romancers, and tale-tellers, that are so 



27 

fearfully overspreading Great Britain and America. And, for 
every writer of any merit they have given birth to, they have 
produced by the score, if not by the hundred, (with Byron, 
however, to assist them,) rhymers, and prosers, whose works 
should be burnt, by the common executioner! The frost is 
not more fatal to the latter harvest, than are the productions, 
of some of those writers, to whatever is praiseworthy in mo- 
rals, or substantial and tasteful in polite literature. But to re- 
turn from this digression. 

I have said that the selection of school-books for the prima- 
ry schools of our country, is injudicious. In one respect I 
consider it peculiarly so. i allude to the almost universal use 
of the Bible as one of them. 

Under a calm and unprejudiced inspection of the effects 
produced, by introducing that volume into popular schools, as 
a common lesson-book, I feel persuaded that the impropriety 
of the practice cannot fail to be satisfactorily perceived. The 
Bible should be read only to be venerated and loved, and for 
the improvement of the readers in morals and piety. But how 
can veneration be produced in children for, or instruction and 
improvement be received by them from, a book, the meaning 
of many, perhaps most parts of which they cannot compre- 
hend, and over which they are compelled to toil and puzzle, 
amidst the innumerable disagreeabilities of a crowded school- 
room — the monotonous din of their school-fellows mumbling 
over their hated tasks, in every discordant key-note, from low- 
est base, to highest treble — the angry frowrs and threats 
of the master — the punishment inflicted by him — the 
cries and sobs of the chastised — and the general pan- 
ic and sympathy produced by the infliction — are not 
scenes like these, which are daily occurrences in country 
schools, calculated to produce any sentiments rather than 
those of veneration and love toward the exercises associated 
with them? Most assuredly they are. Aversion and dislike 
are a much more natural product of such causes. Bitter asso- 
ciations beget bitter remembrances, and extend almost neces- 
sarily to all connected circumstances, as well as to the grounds 
and elements of events. Even the close, perhaps it may be 



28 

called the gross familiarity, which children contract for the 
Bible, by thumbing it, soiling it, cat-earing it, and tossing it 
about rudely and wantonly in schools, detracts of necessity 
from the regard and veneration, in which it should be held by 
them. That volume should never be placed in the hands of 
the young, for familiar perusal, until their reflecting and moral 
faculties are sufficiently developed and matured, to fit them to 
understand and feel its value and its sanctity. Nor is this all. 
Even its binding should be more than usually neat and hand- 
some, if not rich and costly, as a token of the preciousness 
and importance of its contents. And it should be read by the 
youthful at first, under the supervision, and accompanied by 
the comments, of suitable instructors. Let the Bible be intro- 
duced to the knowledge and familiarity of the young, under 
precautions and associations like these; and I hazard nothing 
in asserting, that the sentiment of veneration for it will be 
greatly increased. That Mahometans venerate the Alcoran 
much more highly than christians do the Bible, cannot be 
questioned. Nor is it doubtful, that this is owing, in no small 
degree, to the respectful and solemn manner, in which they are 
obliged to handle it; and the superb binding in which it usually 
appears. To make a common school-book of it, they would 
deem almost as unholy, as open apostacy from the Prophet and 
the Faith. 

I have said already, and now repeat, that public seats of 
learning, whatever be their grade, are not the places, where, 
either morality or religion can be successfully inculcated. 
By withholding the Bible from them, therefore, as a school- 
book, nothing will be, in these respects, forfeited or lost. On 
the contrary, much may, in my opinion, be saved and gained, 
as far as a regard for the Scriptures is concerned. For these 
reasons, and others which might be offered, I am constrained 
to consider the arguments, urged by many learned and excel- 
lent individuals in defence of making a "school-book" of the 
Bible, groundless and invaad. 

That the elements of common education, in its present con- 
dition, are scanty and defective, and that the books of instruc- 



29 

lion used in our primary schools, may be greatly improved, 
has been already asserted, and will not, I think, be denied or 
held doubtful. In the United States, where there are but few 
large hereditary possessions, and where of course idleness and 
a comfortable subsistence are hardly compatible with each 
other, all persons are educated for some contemplated end — I 
mean for some given walk or occupation in life, where an inde- 
pendence may be acquired by industry and care. It is reason- 
able, therefore, that, as far as may be practicable, they should 
receive, as a part of even their early education, such know- 
ledge as may be most relevant to the business they mean to 
pursue, and such as accords best with the state of society, 
where they design to reside. 

Of this description, as a general rule, is the knowledge of 
domestic, agricultural, and horticultural economy; which in- 
cludes branches that children, at an early age, can easily un- 
derstand; and which, by skilful management, may be render- 
ed exceedingly useful and attractive to them. So may every 
other form of knowledge, which embraces visible and interest- 
ing objects of nature. For, when correctly and judiciously 
delineated, nature is always pleasing to childhood. Works on 
these branches, prepared for schools, should contain appropri- 
ate wood-cuts or lithographs, and comprise so much of botany 
and natural history, as may be necessary to give a suitable 
acquaintance with domestic animals and plants — their appear- 
ance, characters, habits, manners, mode of rearing, training, 
and general improvement, marks of distinction between the 
more and less perfect and valuable of them; and such other 
points respecting them, as may be most pleasing and useful. 
Nor should other leading matters, which I have not time to 
specify, but which will readily present themselves to intelligent 
inquirers, in domestic, agricultural, and horticultural economy, 
be neglected. To this might well be added some account of 
the most interesting and useful wild animals and plants, that 
inhabit our own woods and waters, and are made to contrib- 
ute to our subsistence or comforts. A boy skilfully educated 
in this way, will be better prepared, at fourteen, to enter on 



30 

the business of common country life, than a young man, at 
Jour-and-tiventy, furnished only with the common school know- 
ledge of the present day. The propriety and necessity of 
giving to all boys, as a part of their education, some know- 
ledge of agricultural affairs, in the United States, are the more 
obvious, in consideration of the fact, that, not only is agricul- 
ture the great business of the country, but that many resort 
to it ultimately, who had been previously engaged in other 
pursuits. Our agriculture, moreover, compared to that of 
certain other nations, is crude and defective. We can hardly 
run to excess, therefore, in any schemes we may devise, to en- 
courage the spirit and cherish the love of it. 

For boys possessed of a native turn and endowed with tal- 
ents for mechanical pursuits, corresponding provisions may 
easily be made. School-books, judiciously prepared, contain- 
ing familiar expositions of the simplest, and most intelligible 
principles of mechanics, illustrated by suitable plates or prints, 
may be placed in their hands with propriety and advantage. 
And it will soon appear, that whatever may be their habits 
as to other studies, they will be devoted to this. To meet the 
early discovered genius of others, whatever bent it may take, 
kindred arrangements may be readily made. And here the 
benefits of Phrenology will become invaluable. 

Thus, to the usual forms of elementary instruction, which 
common-school education every where imparts, let it unite 
such special forms, as may aid in fitting pupils for definite pur- 
suits, and the improvement in it will be important. This will 
give it an object and an aim, which it does not now possess; 
and without which its defects are palpable. Such are some 
of the principles, which reason seems to prescribe on this sub- 
ject; and experience and reflection will furnish the details. 

Lessons as well as examples for the discouragement and 
prevention of falsehood, profane swearing, and intemperance, 
cannot be too early inculcated, or too earnestly impressed on 
the minds of youth. For it is on the prevention of these evils, 
and not on their cure, that reliance can be safely and reasona- 
bly placed. Among the children of the United States, the two 



3i 

first named vices are disgracefully prevalent. The first of the 
three more especially may almost be said to reign as an.e^z- 
demic in the morals of our land. Children are not instructed 
as they should be in the sacredness of truth, and the culpabili- 
ty of violating it, whether by actions or words. A leading rea- 
son of this is, the dissoluteness of adults on the same subject. For 
what but gross practical falsehood are the want of punctuality 
in engagements, insincere professions, breeches of promise, and 
the countless forms of overreaching and deception in barter and 
trade? And such practices are revoltingly fashionable. School- 
books, I say, ought to be prepared, with lessons condemnatory 
of these vices, which should be solemnly commented on by 
teachers to their pupils. And, as already stated, as soon as 
children can be made to comprehend the subject, they should, 
as a part of their education, be put on their guard against the 
manifold falsehoods and devices, by which demagogues and 
their satellites may defraud, them, first of their rights, and ulti- 
mately of their freedom. 

One suggestion more shall finish my remarks, under the pres- 
ent head of my subject. In every form of education, for what- 
ever end it may be intended, lessons should be given, and en- 
graven on the mind by illustration and example, of the para- 
mount importance of practising industry, and economizing time. 
Without this, nothing truly great and useful can ever be 
achieved. Time is infinitely the most valuable of our posses- 
sions. Yet how lightly is it estimated, and how wantonly 
squandered! — especially by the youthful! Nor, as relates to 
this point, are parents and teachers free from heavy and mani- 
fold delinquencies. While children are strictly cautioned by 
them to be careful of their clothes, books, and pocket-money; 
they are but rarely lessoned on the saving and correct applica- 
tion of their time. Yet, compared to the latter, the former are 
but baubles, unworthy of regard. It is the saving and virtu- 
ous employment of time that make a Titus or a Washington; 
while the waste, and the vicious use of it make an Arnold and 
a Cataline. 

Of a Liberal education the elements are much more nurner- 



32 

ous, and of a higher order. In their full extent, they embrace 
the' entire Science of nature, united to such a command of 
language, as is sufficient for all the purposes of writing and 
speech. I mean of course the higher purposes as well as the 
lower; for no man is a liberal scholar, whatever may be his 
other attainments, who has not a perfect knowledge, critical, 
philosophical, and practical, of his native tongue. Though an 
Englishman or an American be steeped to the core in Latin, 
Greek and Hebrew, Syriac and even Sanscrit; and in every 
modern language of continental Europe; and in all the abo- 
riginal tongues of the New World; if he be deficient in En- 
glish, he has but a spurious claim to liberal scholarship. Nor 
can I think favourably of either the taste or patriotism, judg- 
ment or self-respect of him, whatever may be his name or na- 
tion, who wastes his time in an engrossing pursuit of foreign 
languages, whether ancient or modern, and neglects that, in 
which he lisped his earliest wants and wishes, and received the 
earliest soothings of affection. Our "mother tongue," because 
it is our "mother tongue," bears to us a relation, which de- 
serves to be held sacred. In the sentiments of regard and at- 
tachment, which it claims from us, it is virtually identified with 
the land of our birth. Any defection from it in favour of an- 
other tongue might well be deemed treason. 

As far as language is concerned, then, a thorough knowledge 
and command of English is the highest qualification of an 
American Scholar. It is the choicest element in his literary 
chaplet, and its attainment should constitute the height of his 
ambition. But, owing to an antiquated, and I think a 
perverted, condition of things, it is much to be lamented 
that such is not the prevailing sentiment. Too many 
American scholars pride themselves more on a mere smat- 
tering in the languages, in which Demosthenes and Cicero 
declaimed and wrote, than they would do on the most tho- 
rough acquaintance with their native tongue — that tongue, in 
which I fearlessly assert, that modern poets have equalled the 
ancient ones, and in which British and American orators have, 
in some respects, surpassed the boasted models of Greece and 



33 

Rome. How heretical soever this may be pronounced" by the 
adorers of the ancients, all the facts that bear on the subject 
proclaim it to be true. Yet, in certain coteries that call 
themselves classical. Busby and Parr are all but idolized, be- 
cause they wrote in Greek and Latin better than in English! 
But more of this hereafter. 

I have said that a Liberal education includes the whole sci- 
ence of nature, as far as it is developed. It comprises there- 
fore a knowledge of the properties of matter both living and 
dead, with their relations, powers, and influences; of the gen- 
eral principles and laws, by which that portion of material 
creation subject to our scrutiny is actuated and governed; and 
of so much of practical and experimental details, as may be., 
necessary for illustration and proof, in further researches. 
Nor does it stop here. It embraces also an acquaintance 
with mind, so far as relates to its faculties and functions, 
their connexion with living organized matter, and the forms of 
action resulting from the union. The following then may be 
regarded as a catalogue in part of the leading elements of this 
caste of education, stated somewhat in the order in which, 
from the progressive development of the mental faculties, 
from infancy to adult age, they may be most advantageously 
studied. 

The knowledge of language, and a free and correct com- 
mand of it in reading, writing, and speech, constitute the com- 
mon foundation of every sort of intellectual discipline. The 
reason is, that language is the main channel for the reception, 
and the only one for the usual communication, of other kinds 
of knowledge. 

Arithmetic, and the lower branches of Mathematics may 
be properly enough studied at an early period of pupilage. 
So may geography, mineralogy, botany, and natural history; 
and, under a proper arrangement, these may be rendered de- 
lightful to children, and no less so to those more mature in 
years. So may every other branch of knowledge, in the ac- 
quisition of which the perceptive faculties are chiefly concern- 
ed. Of this description are chemistry, the experimental 
5 



34 

and demonstrative part of natural philosophy, and so much of 
astronomy, as does not include abstruse calculations. Of the 
same rank, and suitable as studies at the same period, are music 
and drawing to those who possess the requisite faculties, trav- 
els, voyages, biography, and so much of civil, military, and po- 
litical history, as relates chiefly to events and descriptions. 
Book-keeping, chronology, and such other branches as involve 
dates, facts, numbers, and details, constitute also at this time 
appropriate subjects of Liberal Education. 

A knowledge of these branches, and a few other?, which a 
want of time forbids me to enumerate, being attained, and the 
higher faculties of the pupil being sufficiently matured, a cor- 
responding class of studies may succeed. These lie within 
the region of philosophy, and call for the exercise of reason 
and judgment, in those who would master them. In more 
definite terms, they embrace relations of the higher and more 
scientific order, generalizations and abstractions, and are the 
special objects of the reflecting faculties. Of these faculties, 
Causality, which traces the connexion of cause and effect, 
climbing the chain of past events, and descending prophetically 
the links of the future, is the chief. It is that faculty, in a 
particular manner, which gives to the mind of the ripened 
•age, profundity and wisdom, and an extensive reach into com- 
ing occurrences; and which enables him, turning backward, 
to "look through Nature up to Nature's God." It was that 
which gave to Socrates and Aristotle, Bacon and Franklin 
their never-dying renown. 

At this period of life, moreover, the moral organs complete 
their development, and their corresponding faculties become 
matured for action. Hence the fitness of the individual to 
enter on the study of moral science, and to improve himself in 
practical morality and virtue. In brief, he is now a rational 
and moral being, and is held responsible as such to his country 
and his fellow men; which, during his causal and ethical ?ion- 
age, if the phrase be admissible, was not the case. 

Some of the principal elements of Liberal education to be 
now incorporated with it, are the principles of natural philoso- 



35 

phy, and the philosophy of history, civil, political, and military, 
with mathematics and astronomy, in all their departments.. 
To these add metaphysics and logic, as far as they deserve to 
be cultivated as distinct branches, physical, which might be 
better termed philosophical geography, political economy, and 
the science of government — in this country, the science of 
free representative government, without which Liberal Educa- 
tion would forfeits itname. Now is also the time for cultiva- 
ting anthropology as a science — for studying I mean with high- 
er and more philosophical views the structure, functions, and 
capabilities of the human body, as subservient to the promotion 
of health and strength, and the prevention of disease, and for 
forming an acquainance with human rights, and with the new 
scheme of mental philosophy, under the heretofore scoffed-at 
name of Phrenology. For that that once derided, abused, and 
anathematized branch will yet become a portion of Liberal Edu- 
cation, is as certain, as any other coming event. Add to this, 
a knowledge of the philosophical history of man, as far as it is 
made out, that some acquaintance may be had with the varieties 
of our race, and reasonable views be formed of their relative 
standing, rights, and privileges^ participators of a common na- 
ture. Nor is this all. The study of Philology, including philoso- 
phical grammar, criticism, rhetoric and eloquence, poetry, and 
polite literature generally, with the art of composition, consti- 
tutes now appropriate exercises. The latter especially is of 
immense consequence — much more than it is generally allowed 
to be — because without it, pushed to an extent far beyond what 
is usual, no American Scholar can have a competent command 
of his native tongue, or can use it with that elegance and 
semi-omnipotency,of which talents and practice can render it 
the instrument. By skilful and persevering discipline in this 
art, hundreds of Americans might become, with certainty, 
Jeremy Taylors and Swifts, Bolingbrokes and Addisons; 
whereas, at present, we have scarcely perhaps one! 

The last element I shall add, which may be safely announced 
as both splendid and important, is the philosophf of Nature, 
as far as it is developed, usually called the "Philosophy of 



36 

Natural History," moulded into the form of Natural religion 
— unfolding, I mean, the grandeur of creation, with its exquis- 
ite workmanship, faultless adaptation, and beneficent intent, 
manifesting the perfections of the Deity, in its production — 
his omnipotence and omnipresence, omniscience and immacu- 
late goodness, — and eliciting toward him, through that channel, 
the gratitude, adoration, and homage, which are due to him 
from our race. Subjoin to this, a knowledge of the principles 
of Revealed Religion, free from the dogmas and perversions 
of sectarism, and from the embittered and intolerant spirit they 
engender, and the work will be sufficiently complete, for all 
the purposes of cultivated life. 

One of the£| purposes is to furnish a suitable foundation for 
the learned professions; for it will be seen, that I have not ta- 
ken professional knowledge expressly into my estimate. I do 
not however hesitate to remark, that the learned professions 
in our country will never occupy the lofty and substantial 
ground that ought to belong to them, and on which it should be 
the pride and resolution of their members to place them, until 
they be erected on the basis of a Liberal Education. Profession- 
al knowledge, at the present day, destitute as it is of the prepar- 
atory attainments which ought to attach to it, is too meager and 
cheap to be highly estimable, useful, or honorable. The road 
to profession is not only too short in the United States; it runs 
through a barren and uncultivated region. Nor do appearan- 
ces bespeak a disposition in the country to lengthen or enrich 
it. Such is the eagerness, with which young men hurry into 
professional and public life, and such the entire disregard of 
the time for elegant, refined, and substantial knowledge, that 
an attempt to enrich and perfect education, so as to render it 
what it should be, seems all but hopeless. That being the case, 
it is but reasonable that it be encumbered with no unnecessary, 
or superfluous element. In a special manner, none such should 
be crowded into it, to the exclusion of others more useful and 
essential. 

This brings me not unnaturally, to offer a few remarks on 
a knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, as one of the 



3t 

elements of a Liberal education. On this subject it is my lot 
to differ in sentiment from a vast majority of my most able and 
learned contemporaries, not only in this country, but through- 
out Christendom. I am not unapprized, therefore, of the oppo- 
sition I am to encounter, the hazard I am to run, and the un- 
kind feelings I may possibly awaken, even in some of the indi- 
viduals in this assembly, by an open discussion of it. But the 
topic being abundantly ripe, for discussion, 1 shall not shrink 
from it, however far it may be from being an enviable task. 
The responsibility of opposing public opinion, when deemed 
erroneous, must be met by some one; and I am perfectly con- 
tent to bear my share of it. All I ask, on the present occasion, 
which, from the courtesy of my audience, I am sure I shall 
receive, is a patient hearing, and an impartial examination of 
the thoughts I may express. 

Treading as Tarn on precarious ground, 1 am peculiarly so- 
licitous not to be misunderstood, either in the views I may 
present, or in my reasons for presenting them. My sensitive- 
ness and anxiety on this point are the more intense, from a live- 
ly recollection, that, when speaking on the same topic, on a 
former occasion, I was misunderstood, and grossly misrepre- 
sented. From the sentiments I then uttered, I have been de- 
clared to be hostile to the study of Greek and Latin. This 
is a mistake. I am hostile only to the misapplication and abuse 
of that study — to an excessive consumption of time in it, in 
some cases, and to the pursuit of it, in others, to the neglect 
of more useful and important studies. I am opposed, more- 
over, to the compulsory study of Greek and Latin, by all the 
pupils in a seminary, without discrimination; while it is obvious 
that, to some of them, the task is irksome and vexatious even 
to distress; and that with all their industry and toil, their pro- 
gress in it is slow, discreditable and mortifying to them. In 
such cases, let Phrenology be consulted, and it will show, that 
the pupils thus foiled and perplexed, are palpably deficient in 
the organ of Language, and can never become ready and re- 
spectable linguists, by any kind or degree of discipline. As 
well may an attempt be made to form a musician out of a 



38 

youth who has no ear (more properly, no organ) for music; 
or to make an expert opera dancer or tumbler, of one who is 
deformed in his person and limbs, rickety in his bones, and 
feeble in his muscles. 

Yet may the youth, thus disqualified from making progress in 
the knowledge of the dead languages, have splendid talents for 
other studies, and may rise to renown in them. Such precise- 
ly was the case with Newton, who fell behind most of his 
school fellows and college mates, in his classical studies, near- 
ly as far as he surpassed them, in numerical calculation, math- 
ematics, and astronomy. While he was sometimes called 
"the dunce and the calf" in the former pursuit, he was a mira- 
cle in the latter. Other similar instances might be cited in 
abundance. In truth they are so common, that school boys, 
are familiar with them. 

It is a dictate of common sense, as well as of experience, 
that youths should be educated, not altogether according to the 
notions of their parents, guardians and instructors; but ac- 
cording to their own talents, and somewhat in accordance 
with their tastes, and the pursuits to which, as adults, they pur- 
pose to devote themselves. Let those, therefore, whom nature 
has endowed with a peculiar fitness, and a predominant love 
for the study of languages, indulge their inclination, and be- 
come polyglots, and even pedants, if they please. For the 
knowledge of the dead languages makes more pedants, than all 
other sorts of knowledge. But let youths, who are differently 
endowed, pursue a different course. Let their minds be main- 
ly directed to those branches, for which they are most pecu- 
liarly qualified. It is thus and thus alone, that the educated 
portion of the community can attain to the highest eminence 
and usefulness, for which their faculties have fitted them. A 
contrary course has often driven young men from colleges and 
universities, who, had they been indulged in their favourite 
studies, and liberated from those toward which they had a na- 
tive and unconquerable aversion, might have become orna- 
ments to science, and benefactors of their race. And I ven- 
Uire to say, that toiling and puzzling over Greek and Latin has 



39 

disgusted and discouraged more young men, and frustrated 
their education and hopes of distinction, than any or all other 
forms of study. Indeed I have rarely seen a youth driven 
from college by his dislike of any particular exercise, other 
than the study of Greek and Latin — some abstruse branch of 
mathematics perhaps excepted. One reason of this is, that 
when a youth has no taste for the dead languages, he consults 
his judgment on the subject, and that tells him that the study 
of them is useless. And as respects himself, it tells him truly; 
for to him, with his unfitness and aversion, it is useless; and 
can never be turned by him to any purpose of either profit or 
honour. As regards other sorts of knowledge, the case is dif- 
ferent. Though they are not exactly to his taste, he notwith- 
standing sees that he can employ them usefully in after life, 
and therefore labours cheerfully to attain them. It may be 
observed, as a general and important truth, that a strong and 
steady aversion in a pupil toward any given form of study, is 
testimony of a high order, that his capacity for it is weak. He 
should not be forced to pursue it, therefore, except for reasons 
unusually cogent. His aversion sufficiently discloses the cause, 
in manifesting his unfitness. It is the declaration of nature to 
that effect. The converse of this is equally true. It is a fun- 
damental principle in the constitution of our minds, that if we 
have strong attachments to given studies, we have correspond- 
ing capacities for them. Nothing in our nature is more certain, 
than that we take pleasure in the exercise of our master facul- 
ties — and the reverse. 

But I have other and yet stronger objections, not indeed to 
the study of the "Dead Languages," (for to that, in given cases, 
I say, I do not object,) but to the extravagant and deceptive 
views that are entertained and propagated, on the score of its 
usefulness. A few of these notions, therefore, I shall briefly 
examine. 

It is asserted that the study of Greek and Latin, like that of 
mathematics, is an excellent, if not an essential mode of exer- 
cise, to strengthen all the faculties of the mind, and fit them for 
the performance of other tasks. 



40 

This allegation (for it is nothing more) involves two mistakes. 
Even the study of mathematics does not exercise and strength- 
en all the faculties of the mind. It strengthens indeed but a 
very few of them* and forms therefore only a partial mode of 
mental cultivation and improvement. These few are chiefly 
Number, Form, Size, Comparison, and Causality — five only 
out of thirty-six ; leaving the other thirty-one unexercised, and 
of course unimproved. No one will contend that a devotion 
to mathematics improves the votary in the faculties of Con- 
structiveness, Tune, Time, Colour, Locality, Individuality, 
Eventuality, Wit, Imitation, or in any of his moral ox ?*eligious 
faculties. Did time permit me to adduce facts and furnish de- 
tails, these truths might be easily established beyond contro- 
versy. Many excellent mathematicians are exceedingly de- 
fective in the general compass and powers of the mind. One 
of the ablest practical mathematicians I am now acquainted 
with, is peculiarly limited in his other faculties. 

Much farther is the study of Greek and Latin from exercis- 
ing and invigorating all the faculties. The study of them, as 
mere languages, exercises the faculty of Language ; and there 
the matter ends. That exercise moreover may be derived as 
well from the study of modern as of ancient tongues — from 
the study of English and German, as of Greek and Latin. If 
I am mistaken in this, the mistake can be corrected; and I will 
regard that man as, at once, my instructor and obliger, who 
will kindly perform the acceptable, office. But in doing so, he 
must use other means than mere assertion, which has been hith- 
erto exclusively employed. He must pursue a course of rigid 
analysis, deriving his facts and arguments either from the na- 
ture of the case, or from the resources of actual experience. It 
will be incumbent on him to make it clearly appear, that the 
study of Greek and Latin exercises more of the human facul- 
ties than the study of other tongues. He must prove more- 
over that there exists between language and ideas something 
more than a conventional relation. In a word; to sustain his 
case satisfactorily, he must make good an absurdity — that the 
exercise of a single faculty of the mind is tantamount to thrr.r- 



41 

ercise of many or all of the faculties. Such is the task; but 
where is the champion who will attempt its performance? 

Language is but the garb and drapery of ideas, and the 
means by which they are made manifest, and communicated 
from one mind to another. Articulate and written speech is 
altogether artificial, while ideas are the immediate product of 
nature, art having no more concern in their origin, than it has 
in the origin of fruit and flowers. To contend as many do, 
that any form of words, as such, can produce ideas, and invig- 
orate all the idea-forming faculties, is as palpable an error as 
man can commit, or fancy conceive. . Were the notion true, 
every individual would understand every language when first 
heard, and be instructed by listening to it. The words address- 
ed to him would impart the ideas they were formed to repre- 
sent. And this would be as true of one language as of another 
— of the language of the Winnebagoes, as of that of the Greeks. 
Language being the mere representative of ideas, but recalls 
those that have been previously formed. It generates none. 
As well may it be contended that the apparel generates the 
man who wears it. For language, I repeat, is but the apparel 
of thought. 

There is in all ideas, moreover, or rather in their sources, a 
native fitness to exercise, gratify, and strengthen the faculties 
to which they correspond, as language strengthens its faculty. 
Thus tune gratifies and strengthens the faculty of Tune, colour 
the faculty of Colour, single objects the faculty of Individuali- 
ty, facts or occurrences the faculty of Eventuality, and the 
relation of cause and effect, the faculty of Causality. Neither 
of these sources or agents, however, can exercise or improve 
any faculty but that to which it is immediately appropriate. 
Tune cannot excite to action the faculty of Colour; colour 
has no influence over the faculty of Eventuality; objects them- 
selves, independently of their relations, give no exercise to 
Causality, nor has the mere study of language the slightest 
effect in giving action and strength to either of the faculties 
just cited; or to any faculty but that to which it immediately 

belongs. 

6 



42 

•I fearlessly appeal to any scholar, whether by toiling and 
puzzling, till his head has ached and his body reeled, over 
some knotty sentence in Homer, Pindar, Horace, or Juve- 
nal, he has ever found his mind refreshed and brightened 
as to other studies — or improved and informed in any respect, 
except as to the interpretation of the passages he was examin- 
ing? And if he be candid and independent, I confidently as- 
sert, that his answer will be no! He will even add — or I will 
take his place, and add for him, from my own experience, that 
such a scene of labour and perplexity, not unfrequently so con- 
fuses and muddles the brain, as to unfit it for a time, for any fur- 
ther intellectual action. And it never invigorates or in any 
way improves it. It is the substance of a book, and the man- 
ner in which it is handled, not the language in which it is writ- 
ten, that exercises and strengthens the principal faculties of the 
mind. The works of Euclid are as instructive, under an En- 
glish translation, as they were in their original Greek attire. 
And so are the productions of Aristotle and Plato, Cicero and 
Seneca, Nor is the assertion less correct, when applied to 
the Novum Organum of Bacon, the Principia of Newton, or to 
any other work written originally in an ancient tongue. The 
Traite de Mecanique Celeste of Laplace, moreover, loses no- 
thing of its instructivcness and sublimity, by being clothed in 
a suitable English dress. So certain is it that no one language 
exercises the intellectual faculties more profitably than another. 
All this is unquestionably true, if the translation from one 
language to another be good. And it will hardly be contend- 
ed, that every smatterer in the dead languages, or in French, 
can render the works referred to into better English, than 
even a common translator — much more an able one. Away 
then with the assertion, that the study of Greek and Latin 
improves all the human faculties! Such a notion is at open 
war with every principle of mental philosophy, and is unwor- 
thy of an enlightened era — or an enlightened individual! 
When teachers shall have learnt to invigorate the sense of 
vision, by the mere exercise oi hearings the cense of hearing, 
by the exercise of smelling, the sense of -TUrHi/tr^ by the ex- 



ereise of touch, or to invigorate either of the other senses, by 
the exercise of taste, then, and not " before, let them talk of 
strengthening all the other faculties of the mind, by exercising 
that of Language, in the study of Greek and Latin! Or, let 
the same project be conceived and its practicability asserted, 
when horsemanship shall have been taught, by the exercise of 
the pen in writing, or of the pencil in painting! Nothing in 
the philosophy of man is more certain, than that each faculty 
of his mind has its specific mode of acting, and an appropriate 
and special subject in nature to act on; that no one faculty 
can act on the subject of another; nor can a faculty be 
strengthened in any other way, than by the exercise of itself. 
The faculty of Tune is improved only by the cultivation of 
music, the faculty of Number, by practice in calculation, the 
faculty of Eventuality, by an attention to facts, the faculty of 
Causality, by tracing the connexion between cause and effect, 
and the faculty of Language, by the study of language. ' But, 
by merely studying language, no one will learn to reason, play 
on a musical instrument, attain eminence in arithmetic, or paint 
a portrait. The truth of these remarks is proved by the fact, 
that the best linguists in college, who seem to acquire the 
knowledge of language by intuition andinstinct, are often the 
worst arithmeticians and geographers, composuists and logi- 
cians. 

But, say my opponents, without a knowledge of Greek and 
Latin, no one can have- a thorough understanding of English. 
That no one can comprehend the etymology of a large portion 
of the English language, without an acquaintance with Greek 
and Latin, as fully as with it,- is not denied. That however is 
of no avail in the present discussion. To be acquainted with 
the etymology of words, and so to understand their meaning 
and uses, as to apply them with readiness and correctness, 
elegance and force, to all the requisite purposes of speech, are 
different and independent attributes of mind. Hundreds of 
individuals, familiar with the derivation of the English tongue, 
are unable to use it with any degree of fluency or effect, in 
either conversation, writing, or public address; while, on the 



44 

contrary, thousands who are utter strangers to its derivation, 
employ it, in every form of communication, with great correct- 
ness, eloquence and power. And such are the only knowledge 
and command of it, that are 'either useful or desirable in the 
business of life. No man under the impulse of sprightly con- 
versation or keen repartee, the flush of composition, or the 
impassioned excitement of public debate, thinks of the roots of 
the language he employs. Thus to divide his attention, would 
be to fail in his effort. The correct, and definite meaning of 
his words, with a choice selection and ready command of them, 
is all he requires. And that he can attain, without a know- 
ledge of Greek and Latin, as fully as with it. Were I to say 
that a critical acquaintance with Greek and Latin may even 
mislead a scholar respecting the meaning of an English word, 
there would be nothing in the assertion paradoxical or unsound. 
The signification attached to many English words, by custom, 
which is the law of speech, is materially different from the sig- 
nification of their Greek and Latin roots. The classical schol- 
ar, therefore, recollecting their original meaning, and conform- 
ing to it, in his employment of them, will sometimes go astray ; 
while the mere English scholar, adhering to the custom of the 
best writers, will use them correctly. 

Do you ask me, how a mere English scholar can acquire a 
perfect knowledge and command of his native tongue? I re- 
ply, that the process is equally plain and certain. Let him 
render himself familiar with his English dictionary, his En- 
glish grammar, and the writings of the best English and Amer- 
ican authors; let him become equally familiar with the style 
of the best public speakers of every description, whether in 
the pulpit, at the bar, or in popular assemblies; frequent the 
most cultivated and intellectual society, to which he can have 
access, and participate in its conversation; and, above all, let 
him practice perseveringly the arts of composition and speak- 
ing, employing in every case his best style and manner, and 
striving to improve them — let him do this, under a confirmed 
resolution to excel, and his task is achieved. He will become 
according to his native endowments, an able and elegant 



45 

colloquist, writer, or public speaker, or all of them combined, 
without the slightest knowledge of the dead languages. This, 
and not the study of Greek and Latin, is the true and only- 
way to acquire a thorough knowledge, and a ready command 
of the English tongue. On the contrary; be the discipline 
here referred to neglected, and those who are called British and 
American scholars, may pour by day over the venerated 
tomes of Greek and Roman lore, and pillow their heads on 
them and dream of them by night — they may become soaked 
and embalmed in the dead languages, and be novices still in 
the knowledge and employment of their mother tongue. Sun- 
dry examples of this kind have been known to me. 

Time was when a knowledge of Greek and Latin was ne- 
cessary to a thorough knowledge of English; because the lat- 
ter language was in an immature condition, and dependent on 
the former. But that time has gone by. The English lan- 
guage is out of its minority ', and amply prepared to set up for it- 
self. Our English dictionaries and grammars, though they may 
be yet greatly improved, are much more full and perfect, than 
our Greek and Latin ones, by the aid of which those languages 
are learnt. In like manner, English is also already learnt by 
similar aid from its own dictionaries and grammars; a mode of 
studying it, which may be likewise yet improved. Of English lit- 
erature the same is true. In the extent, variety, and value of its 
matter, as well as in vigour and profundity of thought, it sur- 
passes all that antiquity can boast. Nor are numerous speci- 
mens of it, that might be cited, at all inferior in beauty, sub- 
limity, and exquisite finish. Were I to say, that in some of 
these latter qualities also it is superior to any thing bequeathed 
to us by Greece or Rome, the assertion could be backed by 
powerful testimony. It is nothing but an idolatrous venera- 
tion of the ancients, co-operating with a sentiment of dispar- 
agement toward the moderns, that can induce enlightened 
scholars and men of ability to deny these truths. In the weak 
and superficial, pedantry and an affectation of scholarship pro- 
duce the same effect. 
. Distance, whether in time or place, increases our admiration 



10 

of men and things. Familiarity and proximity, on the contra- 
ry, detract from it. Time has thrown over the ancients a 
sacred and mystical veil, which, by half concealing them, mag- 
nifies and elevates them to our mental vision, somewhat on the 
principle of an "optical illusion!" And our assumed famil- 
iarity with the moderns, because they are nearer to our own 
date, cheapens them in our estimation. Americans imagine 
the distinguished men of Great Britain and France superior to 
their own countrymen, until they form an intimacy with them; 
when they become convinced of their mistake. In like man- 
ner, an intimate acquaintance, could it now be formed, with 
Zeno and Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, would prove to us 
their inferiority to many modern philosophers; Nor can any 
thing but the causes here referred to, so far mislead judges, 
otherwise competent, as to induce them to pronounce the ora- 
tions of Demosthenes and Cicero, superior to those of Chatham, 
Burke, Sheridan, Pitt, Fox, Henry, Ames, Pinckney, Webster, 
and other modern orators, that might be easily named. In a 
word; in all mental productions, except architecture and stat- 
uary, the ancients are far surpassed by the moderns. Nor is 
it certain that Canova was not equal to Phidias or Lysippus. As 
far as the ravages of time have left us the means of deciding, the 
palm must be-'awarded to modern painters; and, in poetry, the 
ancients have nothing to compare with the miracles of genius 
transmitted to us by Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton. 

Taken in its present condition then, elaborated and matur- 
ed for centuries, by many of the ablest philologists and schol- 
ars the world has produced, the English language is, in all 
respects, as perfect as either of the three, Saxon, Greek, or La- 
tin, from which it is derived. It is moreover, now, as indepen- 
dent of them, as they are of each other, or as either of them 
is of it; because it has assimilated to its own nature, and con- 
verted into its own being, all it has received from them. Not 
more completely is the food we derive from the flesh of our 
domestic animals converted into our own persons; nor are our 
persons more distinct from the animals we feed on, or more 
capable of acting and being employed in entire independence 



47 

of them. It may therefore be studied as successfully alone, 
and without reference to them, as they can without regard or 
reference to it. Having its own structure, its own spirit, and 
its own peculiar idioms and forms of expression, it is now a 
self-sustained production, and could exist and be improved, 
were Greek and Latin annihilated and forgotten. It is matter 
of amazement, therefore, that able scholars, and enlightened 
and reflecting men, should still contend for the necessity of a 
knowledge of these two languages to a full understanding of 
English. Beyond all question, if an acquaintance with Greek 
and Latin, which are but mere feeders, be necessary to the 
formation of an accomplished English scholar, an acquaintance 
with Saxon, which is the parent stream, is immeasurably more 
so. Let us be consistent, then; and if our youth must dwell 
for years on the languages of Greece and Rome, let them not ne- 
glect entirely that of our bold and enterprising ancestors, which 
as a language, is more closely allied to our own, as well as far 
more important to it, than either of the other two. On this 
point let me not be misunderstood. I -do not contend that the 
Saxon language is either as perfect, rich, or elegant, as the 
Greek. I know it is not. But I do contend, that it is more 
concise, spirited, expressive, and vigorous; and, in its genius 
and structure, I repeat, much more assimilated to English. It 
is a rough and hardy product of the north, exhibiting in its 
frame and character, much of the iron nerve, abrupt manner 
and irresistible force of those who spoke it. It bears in 
it nothing that smacks of the feminine softness, or languid re- 
pose of a southern clime. It sighs not in zephyrs, distils not 
in "accents bland, and tones mellifluous," and murmurs but 
sparingly in tenderness and love. If it ministers to music, it 
is chiefly to that, which inflames the warrior, and invokes him 
to the use of the spear and the sabre. It is, moreover, as tense 
and unyielding as the Saxon steel, and as keen and cutting, as the 
blast from the icy ocean — and capable of being rendered al- 
most as boisterous. Hence, by far the most pungent, pithy, 
and expressive phraseology in our language, is that which is 
composed of Saxon English. So, I say, is the most concise; 



48 

because a very large proportion of that form of English con- 
sists of words of owe and two syllables; while those derived 
from other sources are much longer. Greek and Roman 
English is as far beneath it in vigour and intensity, as are the 
other varieties of man "beneath the Anglo-Saxon race. Our 
best English writers, therefore, whose works bear without in- 
jury the trials of lime, and even increase in reputation under 
them, are those who have drawn most abundantly on our an- 
cient mother tongue. Of this class, Swift and Addison, Boling- 
broke and Jeremy Taylor are exemplifications. It is to be 
lamented, however, that owing to the peculiar and tasteless 
spirit of the age in which he wrote, the last named author has 
deformed and injured his admirable Saxon-English style, by 
squadrons of intrusive Greek and Latin quotations. 

Nor should it be forgotten, that, in no other language, 
which scholarship can adduce, Greek and Latin not excepted, 
is the sound so perfect an "echo to the sense," as in Sax- 
on-English, and the source it is derived from. Proof of 
this we have in the words — bang — clash — slap — slash — 
crash — dash — lash — thrash — crack — crush—hurl— rush — roar 
— loud — creak — shriek — screech — scream — -groan- moan-hoarse 
— jar — thunder — tramp — and in thousands of others, whose 
sound alone, when pronounced singly, is a comment on 
their meaning, which can hardly be misunderstood, even by 
those who are strangers to them. And those phrases and clauses 
in our literature, whose sounds are most strikingly in keeping 
with their signification, are composed almost entirely of Saxon- 
English. Thus, what can be more perfectly significant, than 
the cant phrases, hurly-burly — hurry-scurry — "Ran hurry- 
scurry through the room, and pop into the parlour entered" 
(Gray.) And again — "Sharp misery had icom him to the 

bones" 

* *■ * * * * * 

"And when loud surges lash the sounding shore, 

"The hoarse rough verse should like the torrent roar." 



"With many a weary step, and many a groan, 
"Up the bigb hill lie heares a huge round stone. 



49 

< 6 The huge round stone, resulting with a bound, 
"Thunders impetuous down, and smokes along the ground." 
****** 

"The curfew toils! the knet of parting day; 
"The lowing herds wind sIgwIj o'er the lea; 
"The ploughman homeward plods his weary way, 
"And leaves the world to darkness, and to me. n 
Though these quotations contain several words of Roman- 
English, yet the terms, which give them nerve and character, 
are of Saxon origin. 

As another objection to the views I am advocating, we are 
told that all our best English writers have been versed in Greek 
and Latin. 

That there is a strong semblance of truth in this, is certain; 
but that it is strictly and entirely true, may be safely denied. 
And that writers have excelled in English composition, and in 
composition .in other modern languages, in proportion to their 
knowledge of Greek and Latin, is without a shadow of foun- 
dation in truth* Shakspeare knew neither Greek nor Latin. 
Yet, as a writer of English he is unrivalled. William Cobbet, 
whose style, for purity and conciseness, perspicuity and 
strength, (qualities of the highest order in writing,) is not sur- 
passed by that of any of his contemporaries, was entirely un- 
versed in the dead languages. So were Franklin and Wash- 
ington, w T ho wrote with great and peculiar excellence; and so 
are many female authors of distinguished merit, whose names 
are too well known to need a citation. To Washington, in 
particular, I here refer, not only in a spirit of intense admira- 
tion; but with a sentiment of the loftiest pride and exultation, 
as an American. His letters and other productions, as various 
and interesting, as they are extensive and important, have en- 
twined around his brow the chaplet of letters, in splendid 
relief with the laurels of the hero, and the time-worn and ven- 
erable locks of the sage. They give positive proof, that he 
wielded his pen, as gracefully and vigorously, and almost as 
gloriously, as he wielded his sword. His "Writings," whose 
publication is now in progress, are by far the most distinguish- 
ed and valuable contribution that. American Literature has 
7 



50 

received during the present century — if not the most valuable 
it has ever received. To the few names here adduced, might be 
added hundreds of others, who, unversed in the languages of 
the Greeks and Romans, have acquired in Great Britain and 
America, both as writers and speakers, the most enviable stand- 
ing, and brilliant renown. To this number belong Patrick 
Henry, John Marshall, and the great surviving Orator of the 
West. To extend my remarks on this subject; neither Buffon, 
Moliere, nor Cuvier had the slightest acquaintance with Greek 
or Latin. Yet do they stand, each in his own sphere, in the 
foremost class of French writers. And General Foy, the 
most commanding orator in the Chamber of Deputies, was 
also a stranger to the dead languages. So, I think, was Mira- 
beau, the Pericles of his nation. Assuredly he was very lim- 
ited in his knowledge of Greek and Latin, if not entirely 
wanting in it. — But why multiply names in proof of my posi- 
tion? One serves my purpose as well as a thousand. If, with- 
out a knowledge of the ancient tongues, a single Briton or 
American has become consummately great, in writing or speak- 
ing, or both, my end is attained. The fact shows, that such 
knowledge is not essential to the most powerful, useful, and 
fascinating command of the English language — and that is all I 
am endeavouring to prove. A knowledge of Greek and Latin 
gives a more precise and critical acquaintance with English 
words, in a philological disquisition, or any other form' of mere 
verbal inquiry. But, that it gives the slightest aid in the read- 
iness of command or the tastefulness of selection, the power of 
combination or the appropriateness of the application of words, 
in writing or speaking, -may be safely denied. 

I have been told indeed, that, though Franklin, Washing- 
ton, and others wrote well without a knowledge of Greek or 
Latin, they would have written much better with it. This is 
a mere conjecture, employed as a cavil. No one knows 
how they would have written, as Greek and Latin scholars; 
because the' experiment was not made. The notion is but one 
of the hundred expedients, which artful disputants employ, as 
a substitute for something better, in a cause that cannot be 



51 

sustained by facts. It is intended to darken, not to elucidate — 
to puzzle, not to convince. I dismiss it, therefore, without 
further notice, as unworthy of a discussion, where facts alone 
are of any avail. 

As respects my second position, that authors do not excel 
in English composition, in proportion to their attainments in 
Greek and Latin, it is already so palpable, that to cite exam- 
ples in proof of it, would be a waste of time. I have rarely 
known a thoroughly drilled Helenist or Romanist, who could 
write or speak English with very high effect. And I have 
known many such, who spoke it miserably— and w 7 ho never 
wrote it, but in violation of the rules of composition and gram- 
mar. Those who idolatrously worship the "golden calf" of 
Greek and Latin, hold English scholarship beneath their dig- 
nity, and therefore do not excel in it. -Even Sir Walter Scott, 
a miracle in English literature, had but a meager acquaintance 
with the dead languages. Many a school-pedant, unable to 
pen a correct paragraph in his native tongue, greatly surpassed 
him in what is called, by way ol pre-eminence, classical learn- 
ing — but which is far from being justly entitled to the pre-emi- 
nence conceded to it. The kind of learning, which, in an 
Englishman or an American, greatly surpasses every other, in 
high and commendable qualities, is that which best prepares 
him, to wield the mightiness of his mother tongue, with cor- 
rectness and utility, splendour and power. And shame to the 
renegade, who would forego or exchange such learning, for the 
comparatively petty ability to compose epitaphs and sonnets 
in the language of Cicero! Yet it is not long since a criticism 
met my eye, emptying on an author of certain productions of 
the kind, the most fulsome panegyric. He was proclaimed 
quite a miracle of scholarship, though, with ail the aid of his 
Greek and Latin, he was but a smatterer in the literature of 
his native tongue. Finally; in our own country, the author 
of the Sketch-Book, pronounced in England the most graceful 
and polished writer of the day, is but slightly versed in the 
ancient languages. 

Am I asked, is not a knowledge of Greek and Latin essen- 



1 



52 



tial to eminence in the learned Professions? I answer no — 
certainly not to eminence in Medicine and Law. Th'dUwhen 
possessed, it may be matter of convenience, as well as in some 
degree useful in them, is not denied. But its usefulness is 
overrated. When fairly estimated, taking into the account 
the only ends to which it is applied, it is doubtful whether it is 
worth the time and trouble of acquiring it. And that it is not 
essential, appears from the fact, that some of the most distin- 
guished members of Medicine and Law, have been destitute • 
of it. John Hunter stood formerly, and Sir Astley Cooper 
stands now, at the head of one branch of the medical profes- 
sion. Yet an acquaintance with the dead languages made no 
part of their acquirements. And it is well known that the 
same is true, of some of the most eminent lawyers in the United 
States. Even Alexander Hamilton, one of the first civilians 
and lawyers of the age, had such a limited acquaintance with 
Greek and Latin, (if indeed he had any at all,) that it was nev- 
er felt by him in his professional operations, or in any other 
of the exercises of his mind. He was far above all such puny 
assistants — or rather above a reliance on such trivial things^ 
which could not assist him. Had Greek and Latin been blot- 
ted from existence before his birth, the event w 7 ould have had 
no effect on his greatness. He would have been Hamilton 
without them. The knowledge of Greek was no more neces- 
sary to his greatness, than was a knowledge of English to the 
greatness of Demosthenes. A notion the reverse of this, would 
be equally the reverse of common sense. Such men have the 
elements of greatness implanted by their Creator in the con- 
stitution of their minds; and those elements may be as certainly 
developed, and brought to maturity, under the influence of one 
cultivated language, whether ancient or modern, as under that 
of another. The mental powers are much less under the sway 
of language, than is generally imagined. The celebrated Wil- 
liam Lewis of Philadelphia, who stood long at the head of the 
American Bar, could not translate correctly a sentence of 
and Latin, was a stranger even to the Greek alphabet. Yet, 
as an advocate, he was illustrious, and as a counsellor profound. 



53 

And the late Dr. Rush, though his Inaugural Dissertation was 
in Latin j and though, as an elegant writer of English, and an 
able and successful practitioner and teacher of medicine he 
was one of the most distinguished physicians of the age, knew 
but little of the Roman language, and much less of the Greek. 
On this point I speak confidently; because I speak from'per- 
sonai knowledge. 

True; most of the technical terms in Law and Medicine are 
derived from Greek and Latin; especially from the former. 
Those who have a knowledge of that language, therefore, ex- 
perience, from it, in the commencement of their professional 
studies, some facility in the understanding of those terms. 
But this advantage over pupils, w 7 ho are ignorant of Greek and 
Latin, is of short duration. It was gained by the long and 
laborious process of consulting and conning Greek and Latin 
books. It was therefore the reward of much time consumed, 
and much toil endured. But the meaning of those terms can 
be learnt by others, in a tenth part of the time, and with a 
like disproportion of labour, by consulting professional diction- 
aries or glossaries alone. I know this to be true: because I 
have seen it verified in hundreds of instances. As respects 
medicine in particular, whose technical nomenclature is most 
voluminous, I am far from having found Greek and Latin 
scholars to be always the most successful students in it. In 
that respect, I know from observation, that their acquaintance 
with the dead languages does not uniformly or highly avail 
them. 

Respecting other branches of science, the same is true. 
Their nomenclatures can be learnt, and pre-eminence attained 
in them, without a knowledge of Greek and Latin. Sir Hum- 
phrey Davy, by far the most illustrious chemist of his time, 
was a stranger to those languages. And some of the ablest 
botanists, mineralogists, and general naturalists in the United 
States have been in the same condition. 

Mere nomenclature excepted, there is no more essential 
connexion between Greek or Latin, and any branch of science 
that forms an element of a Liberal Education, than between 



51 

Sancrit, or Gaelic, and that branch. And, as already stated, 
the nomenclature can be learnt, without the formal study of 
those languages. To contend then, that a knowledge of Greek 
and Latin is indispensable to a Liberal Education, of the high- 
est order as respects science and the command of English, is 
to reject the fruits of observation and experience, to cling to 
prejudice and be deaf to reason, to follow custom and fashion 
to the abandonment of common sense, and to advocate an 
error as gross as can be imagined. 

Still am I told, however, that by far the greater number of 
able and distinguished modern authors have been Greek and 
Roman scholars. Granted; and the reason is plain. An over- 
whelming majority of writers (in the proportion of one hun- 
dred to one, and perhaps higher) have been thus educated. 
Had they foiled therefore to produce either a greater amount 
of fruit, or fruit of higher qualities, the failure would have been 
astonishing. The Greek and Latin scholars, who have become 
authors, have been also in other respects educated men — fam- 
iliar, I mean, with science, as well as with language; while 
those who have achieved authorship, without the dead lan- 
guages, have been, for the. most part, equally strangers to sci- 
ence — except what they have acquired by their own unassist- 
ed labours. Contending then on terms so fearfully at odds, it 
might be pronounced impossible for the latter class of writers 
to equal the former. Cultivated fruit is always the most valu- 
ble; and of a hundred fields thoroughly tilled, the product 
must be, of necessity, both better and more abundant, than that 
of a single field, or even of several fields, scarcely tilled at all. 
Be it distinctly understood, however, that while I acknow- 
ledge the superiority of the works of authors educated in the 
dead languages, my allusion is to their literary superiority, not 
their scientific. Had I leisure for the investigation, it might 
be easily shown, that, astronomy alone excepted, the most 
useful and splendid discoveries in science have been made by 
men""not thus educated. Assuredly by far the most numerous 
and important discoveries have been made by them, in propor- 
tion to their number. And had they disciplined themselves in 



¥ 



55 

English, to the extent they might have done, even the literary 
qualities of their writings might have equalled those of the 
productions of their more learned rivals. As far as I am in- 
formed, no polyglot scholar has ever been the author of a single 
discovery, except one touching the genealogy, inflection, or 
newfangled signification of a verb, noun, or pronoun, or some- 
thing else respecting parts of speech! True, some of these 
literati have attempted to trace through language the origin of 
nations — to show, for example, that the aborigines of America 
are the descendants of Tartars, Malays, Egyptians, or Chinese. 
And on each of these points, their labours have been alike suc- 
cessful. In plain terms, they have failed in them all. After their 
multiplied toils through the tangled wilderness of lingual identi- 
ties and differences, analogies and synonymes, the subject re- 
poses under the same gloom now, that enveloped it on the eve 
of the Revival of Letters. The most singular result of these 
wordy researches is, that they have rendered it doubtful, in 
the minds of several inquirers, whether America was not in- 
habited at an earlier period than Asia or Europe. The truth 
is, that the researches are founded on an insufficient basis. A 
similarity in their languages may show that nations have held 
intercourse with each other; but not that they sprang from the 
same root. There are many words common to the languages 
of Greece and Rome. That however does not prove the com- 
mon origin of the Greeks and Latins. The same is true of the 
Spaniards. Their language resembles not a little the language 
of the ancient Romans. The two people however are not 
descendants of a common stock. The craziest hypothesis I 
have known, on this subject, is that of a writer of some note, 
who has attempted to trace all known languages, and to suppose 
the same of all unknown ones, up to the Hebrew root, which 
he asserts to have been the language of Adam in Paradise! 
On what grounds this assertion is made, I leave to our Parrs 
and Busbies to decide! 1 shall only add, that, in giving names 
to common and striking objects, such as the sun, moon, stars, 
fire, light, darkness, father, mother, and others of a like char- 
acter, where an effort is usually made to render sound sig- 



56 

nificant of sense, nations and tribes neither descended 
from the same stock, nor having had the least intercourse with 
each other, may readily invent analogous terms. It would be 
matter of surprise if they did not. 

One of the most pernicious errors prevailing on this subject, 
is the belief, that a familiarity with the structure and genius of 
the Greek and Latin languages, but more especially with the 
Uxjle and manner of Greek and Latin composition, is highly 
useful, as a model for imitation, to an English writer. To such 
an extent do some scholars carry this notion, as to assert, that 
the ancient classics are the only source of taste in composition; 
and that none therefore but classical scholars can write with 
taste. Were it an object to analyze this extraordinary fancy 
it would be easy to show, that it arises from a want of know- 
ledge, in those who entertain it, of the true import of the term 
taste, the objects it acts on, and the ends it subserves. But 
such analysis is unnecessary, and would attach to the error 
more consequence than it deserves. The position is in contra- 
diction of all experience of the past, and all observation of the 
present. The Jewish writers never drank at the Hippocrene of 
Greek or Roman literature; nor did they repair for inspiration to 
Helicon or Parnassus; yet some of them, especially their poets, 
have manifested, in their compositions, a taste as exquisite, as 
that which marks the most finished productions of Athens or 
Rome. So have a number of Persian writers. Many English and 
American authors, moreover, entire strangers to the dead lan- 
guages, have written with excellent taste — far surpassing the 
taste in composition of a large portion of classical scholars. Nor 
is this all. A farther refutation of the error is found in the fact, 
that the style of no English author, who has patterned after the 
writers of Greece or Rome, has continued long to be approved 
and admired. In proof of this, Milton and Young, Gibbons and 
Johnson, may be cited in contrast with Addison, Swift, Boling- 
broke, and Scott. The four latter authors have written in the 
straight forward and unaffected simplicity and ease of Saxon- 
English, and will be admired while English literature shall 
last. The four former, on the contrary, have imitated the 



57 

stiffness, pomp, and transposition of Greek and Roman writers, 
to say nothing of their hackneyed mythological allusions, — 
and their styles have grown obsolete. And such will be the 
inevitable fate of every effort, whether in literature or art, that 
violates the truth and simplicity of nature. For nature, and 
not Greek and Latin, is the object which true taste will always 
admire, and the exemplar it will always faithfully imitate. 
Nor will it condescend to imitate any thing else. Nature 
gives \he principles of taste, and art teaches nnd produces confor- 
mity to them. To pronounce Greek and Latin the only fountain 
of taste and refinement in English composition, is indicative of 
ignorance and a want of taste in those who do so. 

The sentiments avowed on this occasion I have loner enter- 
tained, and, in consequence of them, have been charged with 
a wish, to have the study of the dead languages excluded from 
our colleges; and the course of education in them correspond- 
ingly abridged. To the former charge I have replied already 
in the negative; and I now pronounce the latter equally un- 
founded. Instead of abridging, I would greatly amplify the 
course of instruction, in our colleges and universities; but I 
would make it all available for usefulness, or elegance, or both* 
It should be an education of substance more than of sound 
• — of science rather than words. The languages taught to 
American scholars, in addition to their own, should be chiefly 
living languages — those of nations with which we hold inter- 
course and transact business; and which may be repositories of 
knowledge, not to be found in our own literature. Of this class 
are French, Spanish, German, and Italian. Under two of 
these tongues in particular, (French and German) is concealed 
much matter of great importance, not yet transferred to En- 
glish books. Of Italian, to a certain extent, the same is true. 
But is it equally true of Greek and Latin? Certainly not. Th<se 
languages are no repositories of science, and contain nothing 
thatisnew to us. All that is valuable or even interesting in 
them has been long since introduced into our own literature. 
They are now studied therefore as languages, and nothing else. 
They communicate to the students of them not a thought, that 
8 



58 

may not be had through another channel. All they contain 
of ancient customs, manners, arts, and sciences, is before the 
world in an English dress. Nor should it be forgotten, that 
to the minds of scholars, who have not a peculiar turn and ca- 
pacity for them, a' crowd of languages becomes lumber, and 
excludes from them more interesting and useful matter. 

Shall I be told again, as I often have been, that there are 
beauties in ancient literature, which cannot be introduced into 
our own? I do not receive the assertion as fact. There is 
more of pretence and affectation than of reality in it. It is the 
product of learned vanity, egotism, and pedantry combined. 
Those who pretend to have made the discovery, pay, in the 
annunciation of it, much more homage to their own assumed 
sagacity and taste, than to truth. At any rate, if such beaut- 
ies really exist — beauties I mean which cannot be introduced 
into English, and thus made available to taste, fancy, or feeling, 
in conversation, writing, or public speaking, they are useless, 
— and might as well not exist. If the Kelenist and Romanist 
feels them himself, but can communicate nothing of his feeling 
to any body else, they are at best a fruitless possession, unso- 
cial, unprofitable, undesirable and unblest. For who, endowed 
with benevolence, or human sympathy, would wish to brood, in 
solitude, over incommunicable pleasures. The miser and the 
misanthrope are alone capable of such repulsive selfishness. 
But the allegation is groundless. No such mystical beauties 
exist in Greek and Latin. Such are the power and copious- 
ness, the delicacy, flexibility and accuracy of expression of the 
English tongue, that it can set forth intelligibly every feeling, 
thought, and conception of the mind, whether original or de- 
rivative. For an American scholar, therefore, to contend that 
he perceives in Homer or Pindar, Euripides, Horace, or Vir- 
gil, literary beauties which he cannot express, is a confession 
(which should mortify him,) that he is deficient in the know- 
edge and command of his mother tongue. For that tongue, 
I repeat, is richer and fuller, more fruitful and varied in its 
resources of expression, than the tongues of Greece and Rome 
united. Assuredly there are turns of expression in English, 



59 

much more felicitous and beautiful, than any /have ever been 
able to detect in the dead languages. And by what occult 
power other persons, of but moderate penetration, and no 
. better versed in those languages than myself, have succeeded 
in making such detections, is left to those skilled in casuistry 
to decide. 

I repeat, that my earnest desire is, to sec- the compass of ed- 
ucation expanded and its period lengthens; 1 . '-; not that it should 
be narrowed in the former respect, or shortened in the latter. 
This truth is sufficiently evinced by my brief exposition of a 
Liberal Education heretofore given, The branches of know- 
ledge there enumerated, as necessary elements of such an ed- 
ucation, are amply sufficient, if thoroughly studied,, to employ 
the whole time of a youth of the best talents, from the age of 
twelve or fourteen, to that, of eighteen or twenty, the proper 
time for the commencement of professional studies. Of that 
period, a much larger portion should be devoted to the thorough 
cultivation of English literature, than is now done, in any seat 
of learning, with which I am acquainted. I mean its cultiva- 
tion more especially in the form of studied composition, and 
extemporary speech. The latter mode of exercise, which, 
under a government like ours, forms so much of the business of 
public and professional life, is too much neglected in our colle- 
ges and universities, Were it there practised and improved 
to the proper extent, under the supervision of teachers posses- 
sing a sound and critical judgment, and a cultivated and w r ell 
matured taste, we should have our pulpits, courts of justice, 
deliberative assemblies, and other places of public and popular 
address, purged in time of much of that turbulent and bottom- 
less flood of rant and declamation, which too often disgraces 
them. American eloquence in genera], like that of the fourth of 
July breaking from the lips oi undisciplined striplings, is too 
rank and gorgeous in leaves and flowers, to be abundant in 
fruit. It has in it much more of fume and fire, trope and fig- 
ure, than of substantial matter, or of judgment and taste. 
Words substantive are too gaudily ornamented by the pomp 
of adjectives; there is too much of mouthing; with long and 



€0 

sonorous terms, often of recent and spurious coinage; and its 
display is beyond its solidity and strength. I should indeed 
lament to see it stript of all its bright imagery and flowery 
garniture, and reduced to entire nudity and barrenness. Nor 
do I deem it desirable that iciness should succeed to its tropical 
heat. Jt would rejoice me, however, to witness its ebullition 
quieted, its storminess calmed, itsgaudiness chastened, and its 
superabundance retrenched, without any diminution of its 
man'iness or vigour. And this may be easily dpne. Were 
youth strictly taught the mode in which men should speak, and 
practised in it themselves, they would not afterwards forget 
the lesson. And much of this improvement may be effected 
by judicious training in our seats of learning. Let the work of 
reform begin lliere, and it will be carried out in the pulpits, courts,* 
and deliberative institutions of our country, which are so many 
practical schools of oratory. Nor are they schools of com- 
mon rank, or ordinary promise. Far otherwise. If conducted 
under the influence of well-directed ambition and enlightened 
taste, they will become the most illustrious the world has pro- 
duced, and cannot fail to confer, in time, on American elo- 
quence, a splendour and perfection, that have never marked 
the eloquence of any other people. This is not to be regard- 
ed as the mere outpouring of buoyant hope, or as an indulgence 
in wanton and thoughtless prediction. It is offered as matter of 
a higher caste. It is a deliberate announcement, by fair infe- 
rence, of what causes now in operation may be made to pro- 
duce. No people have a happier turn for eloquence, than 
those of the United States. Nor, from the number and char- 
acter of our deliberative and other oratorical institutions, and 
our modes of administering them, does any other nation now 
possess, nor has any one ever heretofore possessed, a tithe of 
the advantages that we do, for improvement in eloquence. 
The means are in our power; and we are not only privileged 
to employ them — we are invoked to that effect, by incentives 
that should be irresistible — our pride and ambition as individ- 
uals and as a people, our love of self, and our love of country 
— to say nothing of our abstract duty to our race. If we do 



61 

not then surpass, in this glorious accomplishment, the people 
of all other nations and times, the fault will be our own, and 
our own the disgrace. 

But through what language muat American genius shine in 
oratory, charm in poetry, and instruct in history, philosophy, 
and other forms of literary composition? Through Greek and 
Latin? No certainly; but through our mother tongue, forget- 
ful of its descent from any other language. For the time is 
certainly coming, when that descent will be forgotten — or dis- 
regarded. The remembrance will not hang, a perpetual incu- 
bus on our speech, detracting from its independence, and pre- 
venting its maturity. For the English tongue never will nor 
can be completely mature, until rendered so by independent 
cultivation. This is as true, as that we should never have 
emerged from immaturity, as a nation, had we continued in 
our colonial dependence on Great Britain. An independent 
condition is essential to the perfection of all that is human. To 
suppose that the English language, which, in less than a centu- 
ry, will be spoken by three hundred millions of souls, — first in 
standing among the races of men — to suppose that it will still 
be considered the nursling of the languages of those specks of 
earth, called Italy and Greece, whose pride, pomp, and power 
have long since passed away, is the consummation of romance 
— not to pronounce it the height of absurdity! Ages on ages 
after those languages shall have become — as become they must 
— the Sanscrit of letters, will the English tongue continue to 
improve in all the higher qualities of speech — and it will improve 
I say the more rapidly, from being cultivated alone, without any 
reference to the source from which it sprang. 

By being treated in its relations to other languages, English 
sustains a two-fold injury. It is adulterated by foreignisms; 
and the estimation it is held in is below what it deserves. 
Some of our puny and conceited book-makers, who have pass- 
ed a few months in France and Italy, make a perfect jargon of 
their style of writing, by an affected and tasteless admixture of 
foreign phrases. Nor is this all. We attach lingual honours 
to Greek and Latin, and hold in comparative degradation our 



62 

mother tongue. Hence, on him alone, who is versed in the 
former, do we bestow the epithet learned; while he, whose 
knowledge of speech is confined to the latter, (no matter how 
ripe and ample may be his knowledge of other things,) is hu- 
miliatingly pronounced by us, a mere "English Scholar!" — 
with a view to the depreciation of his literary standing. I 
have heard that phrase repeatedly affixed to the venerable 
names of Franklin and Washington! And I have heard the 
term Scholar coupled with the names of dabblers, because they 
had looked into Sallust and Xenophon; who, notwithstanding,, 
misspelt even monosyllables in their mother tongue, and violated 
its grammar, in almost every sentence they spoke, and every 
clause they penned! To say nothing of their judgment, sense 
of justice, and veneration of the names of the good and the great, 
how can the pride of Englishmen and Americans tolerate this I 
"English ^Scholar- employed, at this period, as a phrase beto- 
kening illiteracy, and disrepute! while the time is approaching, 
when it will be one of the brightest spots on the escutcheon of 
letters! 

I have appealed to the "pride''' of Englishmen and Ameri- 
cans, on this subject; and I address myself to it again, in the 
hope that I shall be heard. And I assert with confidence, that 
there is nothing in their histoiy more worthy of their pride, than 
their matchless language — for it is matchless, — assuredly un- 
matclied in many of the choicest qualities of speech — in its co- 
piousness and flexibility, variety, accuracy, and power of ex- 
pression. It is unequalled moreover, as already mentioned, in 
the richness and profundity of its literature, and not surpassed 
in its sublimity and splendour. It is the language/ in which 
the history of Great Britain and America has been hitherto 
written, and will be written hereafter, through the lapse of 
ages, recording the extent and glory of their achievments, in 
peace and in war; and it is that, in which, amidst the tempest 
of arms, their warriors have cheered, and been cheered to the 
combat; and in which their triumphs have been proclaimed, in 
the shouts of victory, on the quarter-deck and in the battle- 
field! 



R3 



It is worthy, then, I say, to be an object of the highest pride 
and exultation, as well as of veneration and love, to every 
loyal and high-minded Briton and American. And until it 
shall be thus regarded and gloried in by them, it will never 
be cultivated with the earnestness it deserves; nor be brought 
to the perfection, of which it is susceptible. For that perfec- 
fection it has not yet attained. Wherefore was Greek render- 
ed the most beautiful and perfect of the languages of antiquity? 
Because those Who spoke it took pride in it, loved it, venerated 
it, and cultivated it in itself, in perfect independence of all other 
tongues. They resolved to make it the most perfect and pow- 
erful of then existing languages; and they succeeded, because 
they laboured unremittingly, in conformity to their resolution. 
And it has proved in consequence the instrument at once of 
their renown and salvation. But for her much admired lan- 
guage, where would be the celebrity of ancient Greece — or 
even the knowledge of her existence? Take away her lan- 
guage, and, in despite of the splendour in intellect and arms, 
which once distinguished her, and her still subsisting architec- 
tural wonders, she would be entombed in the darkness, which 
broods in the catacombs and pyramids of Egypt. 

And what Greek has been to Greece, is English to America. 
It is one of her choicest possessions now; for ages to come it 
will be the record and instrument of her power and grandeur; 
and, at a period still more remote, it may be her only conser- 
vator from the shoreless and bottomless sea of oblivion. Paint- 
ings, as memorials ol greatness, have their end; bronze disap- 
pears under the corrosions of time; granite and marble dilapi- 
date and crumble; but language may be rendered as lasting as 
our race. 

Be it the pride and ambition of American Scholars, then, 
not only to cultivate their native tongue, but to render it per- 
fect- For that purpose, without discouraging the study of 
Greek and Latin in other institutions, let colleges be establish- 
ed, in which modern languages alone will be taught, English 
being the chief of them, united to a full course of modern 
science. Let the trial be fairly made, under competent provis- 



64 

ions, and persevered in or abandoned, according to the issue. 
But its abandonment is not to be apprehended. Let the teach- 
ers and the taught, in aid of suitable abilities and means, be faith- 
ful and strenuous, industrious and persevering — true to their du- 
ty, themselves, and their country — and I peril my reputation 
that the experiment will be triumphant. Within the influence of 
these schools, whose motto might be "ancient prejudices super- 
seded by modern improvements," the phrase "English Scholar" 
will be no longer uttered in token of literary contempt or dises- 
teem. On the contrary, it will be hailed as an earnest of tho- 
rough, and useful, and elegant scholarship, And, under the ar- 
rangement, to which it shall owe its honours, I fearlessly re- 
peat, that the English tongue will reach, in America, an eleva- 
tion and perfection, to which it has never attained in its native 
land. But its cultivation, I say, must be in all respects faith- 
ful and thorovgh; the want of which is a leading cause of fail- 
ure in all things. The faithlessness of teachers and pupils is 
infinitely more injurious to letters, than their inability. 

That an experiment of this description will be made, I cannot 
doubt; because I consider it the suggestion of reason; and it 
accords, as I persuade myself, with the spirit of improvement 
abroad in our land. And I should rejoice at its being made in 
the Mississippi Valley, where it will have fewer prejudices to 
encounter, than in the States of the Atlantic. Nor is any 
place better suited to it, than the State of Indiana, which, unit- 
ed to an enterprizing and liberal spirit, is already displaying 
the courage and strength of an infant Hercules, sustained by 
the firmness of manhood, and tempered and directed by the 
wisdom of age. 

I speak not in flattery, but sincerity, when I say, that India- 
na is destined by nature to be great — great in herself, the pro- 
jector of great and useful enterprises; and the producer of 
great an<! important effects; and that marks of that destiny are 
stampt on her features. Extensive in her territorial dimen- 
sions, and compact in her form; favoured with a temperate and 
genial climate, and a soil unsurpassed in its fitness for agricul- 
ture; washed on her borders for several hundred miles, by two 



65 

of the noblest rivers in the Union, giving her in one direction 
a passage to the ocean, and intersected by several other navi- 
gable streams; rich in valuable mineral productions, and pecu- 
liarly adapted to the excavation of canals and the construc- 
tion of rail roads; abounding in excellent water powers for 
the working of machinery; in contact with the waters of an 
inland sea, uniting her to the Atlantic in another direction; 
and rapidly filling up by a population hardy and enterprising, 
industrious and intelligent — thus circumstanced and provided 
for, how, I say, is it possible for the State of Indiana, not to 
become great? To hold the question doubtful, would evidence 
want of reflection and foresight — not to employ harsher terms, 
and call it weakness and fo'ly. As well might it be doubted 
whether the sun that shines, and the dews that descend on her, 
will continue to cover her plains and prairies with an abundant 
vegetation. The laws of nature in her favour are as positive 
in the one case, as they are in the other. 

Already moreover has she given substantial evidence, that 
she understands her resources, and is resolved to employ them 
in furtherance of her greatness, by the magnificent scheme of 
Internal Improvement, which she has recently projected. Let 
rne here, however, respectfully suggest to the directors of her 
destiny, that that scheme does not embrace what should be the 
first, because it is the most important, of all Internal Improve- 
ments—the Improvement of the public mind. This, I say, is 
the "most important" and ought to be the "first;" because it 
is the source of all other improvements; enlightened mind be- 
ing the projector and promoter of every thing in science and 
art that is useful to man. Let it be executed on a suitable 
scale, and in a skilful manner, and other improvements will 
flow from it, as certainly and naturally, as the stream descends 
from the fountain, or the rain drops from the cloud. 

In simpler terms; the first duty of a free and enlightened 

government, and the soundest act of wisdom it can perform, 

13 to educate and improve, intellectually and morally, in the 

highest practicable degree, the mind of the community. The 

9 



66 

way to do this has bef-n specified already. It is to give to the 
many a common education of an appropriate character, and a 
Liberal one to the /ho. And let it be ever borne in mind, that 
the former grade of education depends essentially on the pro- 
motion of the latter. If there be not high schools to prepare 
suitable teachers, common schools will continue to be a dis- 
grace and a nuisance. To commence the system by an at- 
tempt to establish primary schools^rs/, is to begin it, I repeat, 
at the wrong end — a mistake which must inevitably eventuate 
in failure. Multiply colleges and other forms of high schools 
to the requisite extent, and valuable common schools may be 
made to grow out of them, as naturally and certainly, as day 
succeeds to the rising of the sun. 

Gentlemen of the Philomathean Society: Our acquaintance 
has been brief, and our intercourse limited. We met first in 
Society this morning, and shall part in a few minutes, never, 
it is probable, to meet in it again. Trusting however that we 
cherish toward each other that kind and confiding spirit of fra- 
ternity, with which institutions formed for the .promotion of 
science and letters, and the cultivation of the social and civic 
virtues, should ever be instinct. I shall presume on the privi- 
lege of an elder brother, to offer to you, in the shape of parting 
advice, a few of the suggestions of experience and years. 

Some of you will shortly bid adieu to this calm and peaceful 
academic retreat, where, for years, you have held converse 
with Egeria, and dallied with the Muses, to mingle in the Co- 
mitia, or the Forum, or both, and take part in the busy and 
exciting scenes, that aw r ait you in life. 

From the very commencement of this active, and, it may 
be, perturbing and tempestuous career, three glittering points 
will be likely to attract your notice, and become perhaps, one 
or all of them, objects of your ambition — wealth, place, and 
fame. I mean real and lasting fame, the reward of a life time 
of uninterrupted toil, and high, honorable, and useful achieve- 
ment; not the "bubble reputation'' — that empty product of pop- 
ular breath, destitute alike of substance and merit, which, like 



67 

the plant of the prophet, may rise in a night, and perish in a 
night. Nor is it possible for that fame, to which I allude, and 
which is alone worth labouring for or possessing, to be attained 
in any other way than that just indicated. 

As correctly represented by the poet, whose very fictions 
wear the stamp of philosophy and truth, especially in his des- 
cants on human nature, true fame is perched on a pinnacle as 
lofty as it is brilliant; the path to it is steep, and rugged, and 
arduous, and can be ascended only by those who are strong 
and resolute, ambitious and deserving — who, w T ith the young 
Raleigh, "will never think of dull earth, while there is a heaven 
to soar in, or a sun to gaze at;" but are prepared to attempt 
the precipice, with fearless spirits; and, at every hazard, con- 
tend for a dwelling, amidst the storminess of upper air. 

In this country, and in these times, I lament to say, that that 
pinnacle and its glorious prize are too seldom made the aim of 
youthful ambition. Ends of an humbler order, and of easier 
attainment receive a preference. Still, permit me most ear- 
nestly to commend it to you all, as the meed most worthy to 
be aspired to, and contended for; and to express my hope that 
some of you will attempt and fortunately reach it. Though, 
while in pursuit of it, you must exercise untiring patience, prac- 
tise deep and sometimes painful self-denial, and sustain years 
of intense and exhausting labour; and though you must do this, 
in the midst of those, who are enjoying what the world calls 
pleasure and amusement— notwithstanding these and other 
trials and privations, to which you will be subjected; still, duty 
to your professions, your country, and your race, united to an 
enlightened and high-minded self-esteem, invoke you to the en- 
terprise. And success in it will abundantly remunerate you for 
allyou may do and endure in the effort. It will inscribe your 
names on the roll of renown, with those of the luminaries and 
benefactors of the world. But your highest and surest reward — 
that which man can neither give nor take away; but which will 
cling to you in all vicissitudes of fortune, as an attribute of your 
nature; your joy in prosperity, and in adversity your consola- 
tion — that choicest and most unfading reward, will be the 



68 

whispered "well done" of an approving conscience — a sustain- 
ing and gladdening remembrance, that you have devoted the 
noblest faculties, which the Creator- has bestowed on you, to 
the high and beneficent purposes, for which he designed them. 
But what shall 1 say to you of "wealth" and "place" — those 
objects of idolatry in the eyes of "the million?" I may not 
pronounce them positive evils; because the charge would be 
unsustainable. Neither however are they positive goods. They 
put on the one character or the other, according to the man- 
ner in which they are obtained, the purposes they are held 
for, and the ends and uses to which they are applied. 

When wealth is acquired by upright and honorable means, 
and employed for useful and praiseworthy purposes, it is a 
boon of great value, because it may be made an instrument of 
benefits and blessings. And the same is true of political pow- 
er, the product of place. But when, under a profligate disre- 
gard of every right and interest, save those connected with 
self and party, the former is compassed through the fraudulen- 
cy of speculator?, and the latter by the artifices and machina- 
tions of demagogues — under these circumstances they change 
to evils of fearful magnitude, and cannot fail to prove a source 
of disaster. In a special manner, when cupidity of gain, and 
the love of place become the ruling passions of a people, that 
people is rushing blindfold into some catastrophe big with ca- 
lamity, and will inevitably meet it, unless it be staid in its 
career by wiser counsels and worthier motives. 

In such a community, stranger as it is to true refinement, 
and elevated pursuits, literature and science have no foothold, 
and can never flourish. The desire of the people is to have 
just as much knowledge, as may enable them to gratify their 
predominant passions; and that being attained, however small 
its amount, they wish for nothing more. They covet no ele- 
gance or accomplishment of mind, for its own sake, for the dig- 
nity it confers, or for the abundant sources of rational and re- 
fined enjoyment, which always accompany it. Hence the low 
and humiliating condition of their mental cultivation. Nor 
does it comport with the governing principles of human nature, 



69 

that the case should be otherwise. In a state of society so tin- 
genial and withering to them, no more can the higher orders of 
science and letters take root and flourish, than the palm-tree 
can spring from the waterless desert. -The reason is plain. 
Scientific and literary character? are usually poor. They can 
give neither routs nor racket-parties, can keep no gaudy equi- 
pages, nor join in the costly dissipations of the day. Nor will 
a spirit of independence permit them to accept invitations to en- 
tertainments, should they even receive them — which is seldom 
the case. Under these circumstances they and their families 
are excluded from society, and treated with neglect — perhaps 
with an air of vulgar haughtiness, and assumed superiority. 
As respects himself, a man conscious -of high talents and exten- 
sive attainments, personal rectitude and moral worth, might 
regard with indifference or even disdain, such unbecoming con- 
duct in his purse-proud neighbours — but not as respects his fam- 
ily. He cannot bear to see them in what the world considers 
a degraded condition. He therefore either abandons the socie- 
ty, which is incapable of appreciating the riches of the mind; 
or he surrenders his studies, and mingles with the busy, huck- 
stering herd, in the accumulation of wealth. Thus does Mam- 
mon triumph over Apollo and his train! 

How does this picture, unsightly as it is, accord with the state 
of society in America,especially in the great valley of the West? 
Would to Heaven! I could reply, that it bears no resemblance 
to it! But such a reply would be unfounded. As a people, 
we are already proverbially mercenary and avaricious, and 
covetous of political preferment and place, and are daily be- 
coming more so. To acquire wealth and climb into power are 
our master passions. To these all other ends are held subor- 
dinate, and, as far as possible, all our actions are rendered sub- 
servient. This assertion is fully sustained by every fact that 
bears on the subject. The Valley is overrun by land-jobbers, 
speculators, office-hunters, and their concomitants, as was the 
valley of the Nile, by the frog and the locust. Nor shall I 
attempt, at present, the solution of the problem, which evil is 



70 

greatest, the physical or the moral? — the loathsome reptile and 
the devouring insect, or the practised over-reacher in trade, and 
the habitual perpetrator of dishonesty in politics? — Go where 
you will — mingle in what society you may, throughout the en- 
tire region of the West, what are the topics of conversa- 
tion around you? The reply is as easy, as its substance is de- 
grading. The price of public lands and the modes of securing 
them — the value of negroes and cotton-plantations — the con* 
struction and advantages of rail-roads and canals — the short- 
est route to political preferment — the comparative profits of 
grazing- farms, the productiveness of the soil of Texas, and 
suchlike subjects, constitute the only themes of discussion. 
All that relates not to filling the purse, or conferring some form 
of rank in the Government, is forgotten or neglected — perhaps 
despised. Neither literature nor science, patriotism nor 
philanthrophy, nor improvement in the intellect and morals of 
the country, is ever introduced as a topic of conversation. Or, 
if aught be said of education and improvement, it is of the 
mode of improving and training domestic animals — especially 
the breed of running horses, which constitute one of the por- 
tentous evils of the day. The improvement of the human 
mind, in its higher faculties, seems a forbidden subject. If 
to this occasional exceptions offer themselves, they are but oc- 
casional — like angels' visits, "few and far between" — or, to 
indulge in a Latin quotation, the more conclusively to show 
that I am not a foe to that language — they are, like the scat- 
tered fragments of the classical shipwreck, rare nantes in 
gurgite vasto. 

The lamentable consequence of this state of things is, that 
rank and influence in society depend not on strength of mind, 
extent of knowledge, and maturity of wisdom; nor yet on 
high breeding, refinement, purity, and elevation of sentiment, 
or moral rectitude and personal worth— they depend on nothing 
that talents of the most distinguished order,united to the noblest 
and best dispositions, and the highest style of education can give. 
No; their only basis, in the estimation of the "million," whose 
numbers enable them to dictate opinion, and give the rule of 



71 

action, is the size and fulness of the purse — the quantity of 
lands, and the number of negroes, horses, mules, and horned 
cattle possessed — and the amount of the annual product of 
hemp and cotton crops. In fine; ii is not I say intellectual 
wealth and moral excellence, but pecuniary wealth and politi- 
cal place and power, that give standing and influence in the 
Mississippi Valley. Nor can a condition of things more humili- 
ating in itself, or more inauspicious to the continued soundness 
and maintenance of our free institutions be represented or im- 
agined. We are apprized in history, . that a state of society 
very strikingly similar preceded the downfall of the Roman 
Commonwealth. 

Does any one question the. correctness of this statement? He 
is referred for proof of it to the mental condition of those who 
rule the fashion, to which we all conform, enact the laws 
we are bound to obey, and fill a large majority of the offices 
of the State and General Governments. And he will there 
find such proof, in the degrading fact, that perhaps nine out of 
ten of those who, in these several modes, influence society , and 
control the destinies of our country, are strangers to all that 
deserves the name of literature and science. 

Such, Gentlemen, is a faint picture of the state of that so- 
ciety, into whose giddy vortex you will shortly be drawn. I 
have deemed it my duty, thus hastily to sketch it to you, in 
the strong relief of its lights and shadows, showing what is, 
contrasted with what should be, that you may be the better 
prepared to protect yourselves from the evils of the one, and 
turn to your advantage the benefits of the other. And should 
my humble effort produce that effect, even in a limited degree, 
the event will be matter of cordial rejoicing to me, and will 
unite hereafter with other kindred recollections, to gladden my 
retrospect of the present occasion. 

Unintentionally lengthy as my discourse has already been, in- 
dulge me in a few more sentences before we part. Among 
educated young men of ambition and enterprise, the current 
of migration to the south is quite overwhelming — far beyond 
what either reason dictates, or experience invites. But few 



V2 

of the hope-inspired adventurers to the land of the pomegran- 
ate, the fig, and the orange-tree, find there the el Dorado, which 
they all anticipate, and hurry to enjoy. Early death, shatter- 
ed health, and feil disappointment constitute the lot of a large 
proportion of them. Yet still does the stream of adventure 
roll on. 

Why is this — especially why should the migration continue, 
while prospects to the enterprising, in these more northerly 
and healthy regions, are so bright and promising? True; as a 
general rule, more wealth can be amassed, in the south, in a 
given time, than in this northern section of the Valley. But 
there the benefit of removal ends. ]n all other lespects, the 
advantage is greatly in favour of the north. If the winters 
are more severe, the summers are less enfeebling; and if agri- 
culture is less profitable, manufacturing industry is more so. 
Nor ought certain well known evils, not now to be mentioned, 
inseparable from the condition of society in the south, to be 
overlooked by those who think of migration. Be it remember- 
ed, moreover, that in Indiana, as certainly as in Mississippi or 
Arkansas, an honorable independence may be secured, by in- 
dustry, perseverance, and laudable economy. 

As relates to the improvement of the mind, and the attain- 
ment of distinction in science and letters, professions 
and the arts, these northern States have a great ascendency. 
And that is a consideration not to be overlooked by those who 
set a correct estimate on matters of mind. In most parts of 
the South, there is a lamentable neglect of mental cultivation, 
and a corresponding wantof literature and science. Young men, 
who are allured by the love of gain, to repair to that gay and 
relaxing region, abandon their studies, the moment of their 
arrival, and devote all their leisure to social enjoyment — or 
waste it perhaps in wild carousal, and fatal dissipation. Added 
to other barriers, the force of fashion, and a wantof the excite- 
ment of mental competition, are opposed to study, under the 
bodily exhaustions of the south. In a word; the entire habits 
and feelings of that region must be revolutionized, before it 
ran be the birthplace or nursery of intellectual pre-eminence. 



. 73 

For, let it never be forgotten by the youthful and aspiring, 
that such pre-eminence is much more the product of labour 
and perseverance, than of talents and genius — though, for the 
attainment of it in the highest degree, both are essential. 

Considerations like these should lead you to pause and pon- 
der, before you exchange for the beamy and flower-clad land 
of the sun, this soberer and less brilliant State where you have 
been educated, which called into existence and bounteously 
and affectionately sustains and cherishes your Alma Mater, 
and in which perhaps most of you first saw the light. If your 
preference be for "golden gains" shattered health, and minds 
comparatively empty and enfeebled, hasten to the south. But 
in case, your choice be, sound health, "golden opinions" a 
competent — perhaps an affluent independence, and minds well 
stored with science and learning, and accomplished in the arts, 
remain where you are, practise industry corporeal and mental, 
and economise your time and means, and your end will be at- 
tained, and your desires gratified. Your course through life 
will be useful and honorable, the esteem and applause of con- 
temporaries will await you, and posterity will enrol you in 
the list of their benefactors. 

Farewell! — and, in whatever spots of earth you may fix 
your abodes, and whatever occupations it may be your pleas- 
ure to pursue, of this be assured; that my affectionate and fra- 
ternal regard will attend you, accompanied by my earnest 
wishes, that your lots may be as prosperous, and your days as 
happy, as they can be rendered by competency and reputation, 
the recollection of well-spent lives, peaceful consciences, and 
an approving Heaven ! 



THOUGHTS 



on 



POPULAR AND LIBERAL EDUCATION, 



WITH SOME DEFENCE OF 



THE ENGLISH AND SAXON LANGUAGES, 



IN THE FORM OF AN ADDRESS TO THE PHILOMATHEAN SOCIETY 
OF INDIANA COLLEGE; 



DELIVERED SEPTEMBER 28TH, 1836. 



BY CHARLES CALDWELL, M. D. 



PRINTED BY REQUEST OF THE SOCIETY. 



LEXINGTON, KY. 

INTELLIGENCER PRINT. 



1836. 



^>u»S3SL>P?, 












at>^^> 



^«dEra» 















£«i^«a»i 



y5g>y£> y :» ^ 



>:>2S 









^? «1» ^s -;^> > ^ 



> 3 e » :> 



Q3 
DOB 






>*S>) 



'<£>■:, >J> $&-* "'-A 






ft} ^ » 















^ > 



--^mi>>r 






I> 1 


^L>J> ;l7> 


9 " 


k^:CE>3X.7> 


> 


$P£0ED3 ;; ^> 


> 3 


>i&3>3L> y>;> 


»_1 


!20>2>X>2X£> 




53®- 2» >Jar3§> 


> 


scdsx 


>^ 


> -X» 


> ; 


$5^ JDO 3 I> 


> 


^ TCO §> 


)1 


>} »> -D 


} 


vv»JL'^> 









3>^ 









-3 ) Hi 

> ^M> 









^^^ER^Pi 



yimrpo y>j> 



$ .yy^>->a 

) y>^> -^ ■ ■- 
'^? 1 



^ 'DQ yja» 
,)>f>>))2l» . 















